Living a Lie
by Azzurro
Summary: Kakashi is just a teenager who has lost all hope in life and all faith in the human race, including himself. Naruto is just a baby who has had his future snatched away before he's even really lived. The two are unexpectedly forced together under the reluctant promise of a dying wish. How will they find true happiness in a life that is bound by lies?
1. Prologue

**A/N: This prologue has been re-written. I looked over the old one and it kinda made me cringe at some parts, so I decided to re-do the whole damn thing. I feel like this one depicts some moments more realistically and with better description. I hope you enjoy and please review if you have a moment! For those of you who already read the other prologue, I'd really like to know if you think I improved it if you can at all remember what the other one was like! ;P**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**

_-_Start Flashback-

_Cracked bones crunched under Kakashi's quick feet as he ran, the sound making him flinch unexpectedly each time. Patches of blood disguised within the pools of mud created by the endless rains squelched underneath his already stained sandals, some of it rising up to spatter his frozen feet._

_He could still hear his comrades even now, their screams and shouts. Some cried for mercy, others hollered in a burning rage. The worst, though, were the ones who shrieked in pure agony. They were in so much pain that they didn't even have the mind to be ashamed for sounding so weak as they died. They gave themselves over to the insanity caused by the panic of uncontrollable pain and passed on with the sound of their own screams being the last they would ever hear._

_They would leave behind mounds of lovers, children, friends and comrades to know they'd died in some of the worst ways beyond imagination. _

_He looked left to see the front of his village so utterly destroyed that you could only see burnt skeletons of what used to stand with such bright colours and an unwavering strength. He almost laughed when he could barely imagine the bustle of a lively crowd through those tiny stores anymore. The scene before him tainted such an image now that he had never fully appreciated to begin with. That happens with all things in the end, doesn't it? You never realize how much you treasured the tiny moments of goodness until they were obliterated right before your very eyes._

_His eye proceeded to flicker to the right of its own accord, but then immediately snapped to look straight ahead. He only saw the sight for a moment, but the bodies torn and twisted beyond recognition would stay branded in his mind like a permanent scar. Whoever said that the eyes of the dead were as blank as a slate was a Goddamn liar. The ones slaughtered in a merciless rage had their eyelids peeled back to such an extent that their eyes were practically bulging out of their skulls. The pupils were still contracted to barely-visible pinpoints; the remnants of the fear of watching their own bodies wrenched apart before the heavens granted mercy to them and took their battered souls._

_Ahead of him, though, was a single figure that brought about a sense of an uncontrollable fire in the depths of his being. Whereas the aforementioned observations were made with an inevitable numbness, the sight of the cause of such unspeakable devastation brought upon him such rage like he hadn't allowed himself to revel in for a long time. The feeling was comfortingly warm against the chill of fear permeating the stormy night._

_The Nine-Tails was the one that had done this; a demon fittingly the colour of the dark red blood that it bathed in with unrestrained glee. It was a creature dragged from the pits of the most unimaginable nightmares and reigned with nothing more than an unquenchable hatred. It felt no love or pity or anything even remotely humane. It desired only to bring about such blinding agony and grief to satisfy its uncontrollable need to watch the world burn. The full moon glared brightly as a backdrop for its massive head that was raised in an ear-screeching howl as it once again-_

-End Flashback-

Ow! What the fuck was that?!

Pulled harshly out of the events that had only happened that very night that he had numbly been turning over in his mind in an endless and uncontrollable repeat, he looked down for the source of what had tugged so harshly at the hair hanging forlornly over his left eye.

He almost growled when he realized that the tiny bundle in his arms was giggling in amazement as it yanked happily on what had so avidly captured its attention. The damn thing was flashing past scenes that completely broke the minds of most grown men and it somehow found a reason to actually start **laughing.** Was their pain and the resulting sorrow so unnoticeable that an unusually-placed piece of pale silver hair was more worthy of its time?

He harshly grabbed the hand that was causing his scalp to hiss at the stinging sensation and shoved it curtly back into the pale blue cloth, back where it damn belonged. This was no time to find something so trivial appealing; not when they had both lost something that had cracked whatever chance at happiness either of them had, like a vase that had been tipped off of its perch and smashed onto the unforgiving ground below in thousands of tiny, sharp pieces of lost hope.

-Start Flashback-

_"__**NO!**__"_

_He was there before he had even realized he had moved, his shaking arms barely bracing the man as he fell onto them unceremoniously. He almost laughed hysterically when he recognized that the man that everyone looked at as a one of their greatest heroes in history had fallen before his own student so clumsily._

_Kakashi's breathing was synonymous with that of a panic attack, the inevitable realization far too crushing to pass through him without destroying him from the inside out as it fought its way through the protestations of his broken mind._

_A hand clutched at the torn and wet fabric of his chest, just below a stain of blood that belonged to an unknown who had had his chest sliced open before he had jumped to attack from his hidden perch on a tree beside the one Kakashi himself had been residing in._

_The physical action shocked him from his instinctual need to reject his grief in both body and mind. His singularly visible eye snapped to stare into the gaze of the man he looked to as an irreplaceable idol and a surrogate father, desperate for him to save him from the unknown of his endless pain. He'd done it once, so he could do it again, right? He'd already found out that he'd lost the fiery compassion of Kushina to the pressures of labour and the extraction of the Nine-Tails; he couldn't possibly watch the gentle strength in those bright blue eyes fade right along with her._

_Whatever the Fourth Hokage saw in the teenager's gaze made him flinch noticeably, followed by a pained moan as the action caused the gaping hole in his chest to spurt out more dark red blood that was draining what little life he had left._

_"Kakashi," he said hoarsely, the words shivering across his pale lips, "my son. Naruto. His name is Naruto. H-he is the new Nine-Tails jinchuriki. I used the reaper's s-sealing jutsu to stop the demon and place it inside of him. You h-have to take care of him. He will be yours now. No one can know who he is, n-not even the boy himself. You have to do this. It's the last thing in this w-world that I ask for."_

_A tear dripped forth from Kakashi's eye as his anger snapped back to hit him in the face like a rubber band having reach its limit. The force of it caused him to shout almost incoherently, "How dare you ask me such a thing?! __**This **__is your last wish?! You're supposed to ask me to help you or to find a way to stop the bleeding, not to take care of your son! You don't need me to take care of him because you'll be there to-"_

_"No, Kakashi!" It was designed to be a stern shout, but came out as barely a pained whisper along the cool night breeze, "I won't be there. I'm d-dying and there's nothing either of us can do about it. As a shinobi, you should understand that I died s-saving my people, the way any man that carries the legendary W-will of Fire proudly would!_

_I took you in when you were lost and a-alone because I cared about what happened to you and all I ask is that you do the same for my s-son. You'll find him at the north edge of the clearing. I t-trust you, Kakashi. A-always remember that I was p-proud to call you one of my o-o-own."_

_And with that, the Yellow Flash of Konoha died in the arms of a mere teenage boy who worshipped him as not only a savior to the people of the Hidden Leaf, but also as the greatest savior of himself. He passed on to an eternity in the belly of Death itself as his price to pay for his unquenchable desire to protect those precious to him. For the love of God, the guy even died with a gentle smile on his face, as if he had just received the greatest gift as a result of the horrible sacrifices forced upon him._

_With a scream full of a pain twisted into an unrecognizable mess of pure agony, Kakashi reverently laid his sensei and leader down into the puddle too dark to be mere mud and uprooted grass anymore and threw himself to the unbearably hard ground beside the cold body, the force causing his hitae-ate to dig into his forehead harshly enough to make his head spin in a nauseating dizziness._

_He was about to scream once again so brutally that it tore his throat to shreds, when he heard a much higher-pitched shriek than the one that had forced its way out earlier from the very depths of his broken soul. In an unexpected moment of shocked clarity at the shrill voice joining his own, he realized just what that sound had to be._

_Once he made his way over in a panicked flash to the bundle of trees at the edge of the clearing that he vaguely remembered his sensei having pointed out in his dying moments, he almost fell flat on his arse when his mismatched eyes met with two stunning, bright blue eyes, scanning the face of the newcomer in undeniable fear as fat tears rolled down the flushed cheeks slashed with three distinctive scars on each. Those eyes were so achingly familiar that the inevitable shock at such a discovery overrode his blinding grief._

_Feeling an urge that momentarily took priority over his own pain, he snatched the baby up and clutched it awkwardly as far away from his chest as possible, never one for close contact unless it was the unavoidable kind in the midst of battle. He winced at the sound coming from the boy that immediately reminded him of the terror-filled screams of his comrades that had by now faded after the Fourth Hokage had taken the attention of the monster, baring sharpened fangs with the flesh of its victims flapping like clothes washing in the summer breeze._

_After a minute or so of staring the poor thing down while he tried to figure out what the hell you were supposed to do to get it to shut up, the baby eventually quieted down and in turn stared straight back into the blank dark grey of his gaze. In the time the kid had taken to stop wailing in a blind panic, Kakashi had found a way to temporarily shove his feelings down into a space where he would pick them out piece by piece whenever a moment of weakness arose and analyse it guiltily when each one reminded him of what he couldn't save. It was the only way he felt he could deal with his life without losing himself to insanity. The instinctual coping mechanism was so familiar by now that the action came with what appeared to be an unsettling ease._

_Eventually, all thought on the matter faded away as he became entranced by the eyes still staring in wonder at his own._ _It wasn't long before he lost himself in their clarity and openness; as if the child was bearing his soul to this stranger he had known for such little time. Somehow, miraculously, their sheer innocence calmed Kakashi much more rapidly than he'd like to admit._

-End Flashback-

In the present, he growled as his memory took him down that particular path. He'd rather not remember that moment of weakness. His eyes were similar to his sensei's and that was all. That kid had no right using them like that against him, whether he realized he was doing it or not.

-Start Flashback-

_"I took you in when you were lost and a-alone because I cared about what happened to you and all I ask is that you do the same for my s-son."_

__-End Flashback-

The replaying of that phrase caused him to stumble on a thin branch as he continued to make his way forward. When he'd heard the shouts of his comrades rushing to the scene of the battle between the Nine-Tails and their Hokage, he'd realized that he couldn't be found with the child at the scene and had dashed away under the cover of the shadows cast by the canopy of the trees swaying in the waves of breeze ruffling the sudden stillness of this awful night. He'd been blindly sprinting forth ever since.

As he stared down at the child who had finally closed those damn blue eyes, having given in to his inevitable exhaustion, he conclusively allowed himself to truly contemplate what his sensei had asked of him, a broken teenager who barely could keep himself together, let alone raise a new-born child with secrets that could destroy both of their lives.

Eventually, he realized he would inevitably raise the baby as his own. He would end up protecting him at the cost of his very own existence. No matter how much it pained him and no matter how much he wanted nothing to do with the kid, he would comply with his sensei's dying wish. It was his unignorable mission from his late Hokage and, besides, he'd never forgive himself if he failed the man in something that meant so much to him.

With a determined look in his eye, he picked up his speed once more; dashing back towards the ruins of his village as the baby – _Naruto _– lay limply in his arms, a soft breeze ruffling his bright blonde hair in a soothing manner.

He would perform his duty.

But he didn't have to like it.


	2. Chapter One

Kakashi finally came to a stop in a clearing on the fringes of Konoha, panting lightly as he clutched Naruto tightly and used his sensitive hearing to assess his surroundings. A moment later he was able to identify that no one was close enough to see either him or the dangerous secret held in his very own arms.

After realizing he was in no immediate danger, he let himself lean against a tree to his left, the shadows of its canopy dancing upon his slumped body. He could already feel the wounds of battle and the exhaustion of overwhelming grief doing a number on his system. It didn't help that Naruto was currently resting on an impressive bruise on his right forearm and that he wouldn't be able to make his way home, if he still had one, until it was dark and all possible witnesses to Naruto's mysterious arrival into the village had left an opening for him to sneak in through. Even from this distance he could hear them all trampling around like chickens with their heads cut off, not knowing what do with themselves and the utter devastation they had been forced to face.

Kakashi chuckled bitterly as he realized that the cause of their pain was currently locked tightly within his own embrace. That the cause of **his **pain was going to be his new roommate.

He couldn't help but feel agitation at the fact that he was feeling such agonizing pain within his own mind and yet Naruto was just sleeping there in the comfort of a pair of warm arms, having no goddamn idea how lucky he was to be alive and having the privilege to find someone to care for him despite so recently becoming the container to the most vicious demon known to this world.

Kakashi ignored the inconvenience his conscience presented him, trying to reason with him that he was just scared and drowning in grief and that he was just taking it out on someone he felt he should be able to blame, and instead forcefully shoved Naruto away from his chest. It was as if he was trying to envision, in some twisted way, that Naruto was his source of torment and that if he physically shoved him away that some part of his soul could let go of the emotion that he just couldn't handle anymore.

He'd lost everyone. **Everyone. **Everyone he'd ever cared about, everyone he'd ever truly bonded with, everyone who'd ever truly cared for him in return…everyone he'd ever honestly **loved.**

He was so lost in his own overpowering thoughts that he didn't even notice that his unjust actions against the boy had rudely awoken him, his tiny mouth once again opening to wail about his unfit guardian that had been forced upon him.

Being faced with Naruto's distress so suddenly and knowing without a doubt that he was entirely responsible for it caused his true self to come crashing down on him like a tsunami against the shores of land.

How could he have so much as **thought** of his sensei's son like that?! Yes, the boy carried a demon inside of him and was lucky to have Kakashi to watch out for him on his now-deceased father's request, but that didn't mean that he didn't deserve to have a life just like any other child, just because he carried a monster inside of him. That didn't mean he didn't deserve someone to look out for him, friends that he could trust, comrades that would fight beside him at all costs and a home that he could have the right to protect.

He may not want to have to 'raise' the boy, but Kakashi was still a decent human being and he was disgusted with himself that he would put all his misery on someone who had only been alive for a few hours. He would not sink to that level. He would provide Naruto with the life any child deserves and he would shut up about his own selfish insecurities. He was responsible for a real, living child now and it was his duty to act like that. Minato would be disappointed if he performed his mission otherwise.

Because that was all it was and ever would be: a mission. It was his last order from his sensei and Hokage and therefore it was his duty to perform such a mission to the best of his ability. He owed that to Minato.

But he owed nothing to Naruto.

He would ensure that the kid had the life that Minato would've wanted for him and keep him safe, but that was it. No emotional hugs or family heart-to-hearts and so on. Kakashi didn't do such things. He barely even performed such acts with his own father, whom he had admired and loved to an unimaginable extent, let alone to a boy that was just probably gonna turn out to be another mindless brat, sensei's son or not.

He clenched his one visible shut, his Sharingan eye once again covered by his hitae-ate, and dispelled a relieving sigh, gathering the strength in his lax muscles to once again attempt to calm down the howling boy. Couldn't have him giving away their position just yet, now could they?

Just as he was about to set into a useless rant aimed at the infant about how 'everything was gonna be ok blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit', a quiet voice containing a rather somber tone said to his back, "Damn that kid's sure got some decent lungs on him."

It all happened in an instant, barely even visible to the human eye. Kakashi switched Naruto to lay fully against his left arm and used his now free arm to grab a kunai from the dwindling supply in his pale brown pouch. He then pivoted expertly around to face his new enemy, with the kunai held firmly and defensively before himself and Naruto.

He wouldn't hesitate to end this intruder's life if need be. He'd already ended far too many lives for this person's to be any different.

"Now is that really any way to treat one of the legendary Sannin? Honestly, you'd think after all the times I'd met you, you would've figured out not pick a fight with me, especially when I'm just trying to help," a short woman, but with a rather impressive bust size, said with an aggravated sigh, appearing to be carrying just as many wounds and just as much exhaustion as he was carrying after the battle with the Nine-Tailed Fox.

For the love of God, it really had to be her at a time like this, didn't it? Someone up in the clouds must really love fucking around with his life.

Before the teenager stood one of the Leaf Village's greatest assets, one of the three Sannin. She may be a woman with a ridiculous temper and a disproportionate body, but even Kakashi knew not to underestimate her. Most importantly, he knew that she was not an enemy to the village.

He had yet to uncover whether or not she would become an enemy to him and his charge.

As he assessed her with an unwavering intensity, she strode forward with arms waving in the air, going on about something to do with Kakashi's poor attitude and how she was really gonna set him straight some day or something or rather equally ludicrous.

She eventually stopped striding purposefully forward when she was practically nose-to-nose with both boys, her golden eyes hardened with a determination that almost had Kakashi taking a small step back, if he was not still locked in a defensive position in the face of the wrath that was Tsunade.

"Hand him over, kid. With your current skills, you couldn't calm the poor thing to save your life."

It was then that Kakashi initiated that step back, now feeling undeniably defensive of his charge in the unfortunate event that he had now been discovered before he had created an acceptable excuse and backstory. In his current position he was in no way equipped to lie to the ferocious lady and he would be found out in an instant.

**Naruto **would be found out in an instant and that particular thought was very troublesome to Kakashi indeed.

Tsunade seemed shocked into stillness, her arms still outstretched to receive Naruto, as she realized that Kakashi was serious about his silent threat. He honestly believed that she was a very real danger to the already-fragile safety and security of the child.

Finally understanding his strange and confronting behavior, she lowered her arms and allowed her body to fall into a non-threatening posture, clearly expressing to the still-wired Kakashi that she in no way intended to harm Naruto.

Her eyes turned into twin pools of sincere gold when she enunciated calmly, "At ease, kid. You have nothing to worry about. I was the one to deliver Naruto and am only here to help. Despite his unfortunate circumstances, Minato's only legacy deserves the best care available and I am willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that happens."

Kakashi had been pensive at the start of her small speech, but had had no choice but to believe her when he saw and heard her utter sincerity and caught her mention of Naruto's name. No one other than Kushina, Minato or Kakashi should know his name. It was only possible for her to have attained this knowledge if her story was true. Besides, Tsunade wasn't one to lie about something so serious. She was far too straightforward to go through such unnecessary deceptions.

She moved forward slowly once more, seeing in Kakashi's lone eye that he believed her story. This time, Kakashi allowed her to handle the still-wailing infant, its cries hoarse from the abuse his tiny throat had taken. Once again realizing that it was his fault, Kakashi almost winced. Almost.

As Tsunade calmed his howls to small sobs stifled into her ample bosom, she demanded in a contradictorily soft tone that Kakashi reveal the night's happenings.

After Kakashi had finished his tale and Naruto had finally shut up and gone back to sleep in Tsunade's much more adequate hold, compared to Kakashi's awkward clutching, Tsuande cast her eyes down to the infant and then back to Kakashi, She repeated this process many times before sighing dramatically and saying, "I know that you're way too young to be even considering taking in a kid and raising him but I can, unfortunately, understand Minato's point of view. He was right in choosing someone he could trust to take care of him and someone with the adequate skill to protect him. I don't like it all that much, but we really don't seem to have much other choice than to accept it."

For reasons mysterious to Kakashi, he sighed in triumph and slumped against the tree he had been leaning against earlier once again. For some reason, the release of the pressure of the thought in the back of his mind that Tsunade might take Naruto away from him in turn lifted a great weight off of his chest that he didn't even realize had been there in the first place. He didn't like the fact that knowing that he wouldn't be losing Naruto brought such…such **relief.** Nup, not at all.

Tsunade walked past Kakashi with Naruto still in her arms once she noticed just how worn-out and worn down the poor teen was while he was lost in his melancholy thoughts.

"Come on, kid," she said as she walked towards the village, "The kafuffle in this part seems to have died down. Hopefully your place isn't too damaged and we can get into setting you up to take care of a baby. I'll help you out with the basics while you sort yourself out." And with that she set off briskly towards the direction of Kakashi's house, giving the teen no chance for protest and having only the option to reluctantly follow.

"Well, looks like your house was well-placed. Not a damn scratch on any of the houses in this neighbourhood."

Both Kakashi and Tsunade stood before Kakashi's two-story home, relieved that his home was still in good condition, having been placed at the back of the village and way from the area of the Nine-Tails' wrath. Naruto still lay peacefully in Tsunade's arms.

After their brief moment of relief, they both strode forward towards the front door, neither of them being the kind to stand around for no particular reason.

Kakashi was equally amused and annoyed when Tsunade mysteriously opened his **locked **front door with one hand, while the other was still occupied carrying Naruto, and proceeded to barge into his house totally uninvited.

At least she had had the courtesy to leave the door open for Kakashi behind her.

As soon as Kakashi closed the door behind him, Tsunade immediately wandered around his house as if it was her own, rattling on and on about 'child-proofing this, buying this, fixing up that, making more room here' and so on and so forth until it really hit Kakashi.

He was really gonna take care of a baby; an actual live fucking baby. He was supposed to take care of it, protect it. Him. **Alone**.

A flood of thoughts instantly assaulted his mind about how he totally was not equipped to do this and how he just knew he was gonna screw-up and disappoint Minato and-and for God's sake he was just a frigging kid! He was supposed to be going out with friends (not that he had any) and dating girls (not that he was interested in any) and going partying for no reason (not that Kakashi was at all the out-going type). He certainly was not supposed to be responsible for the life of a small child. It was just too much; now or ever.

He hadn't even realized his breathing had increased to levels probably to high for his health or his sanity until he felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He instantly snapped his head up, looking into the unusually calm face of Tsunade.

"I know it's hard kid. Taking care of someone, being **responsible, **for someone so young is never easy. You're gonna have a lot of ups and downs and you're gonna screw-up a lot but you don't have to worry about that. Because **I'm **always going to be here for you and the boy. I want him to be happy and safe just as much as you do and I'll be here to support you the whole way through. I'm sure your comrades will come to understand your situation too and will help you out as well. **You're not alone in this, Kakashi. **Don't you ever forget that; you hear me?"

Kakashi just stared back dumbly for a moment, drinking in the fact that she was being so…so **nice **for a change. It was unnerving but not unwelcome in his current situation. Her support would definitely be invaluable during the next…hell **years** of his life.

Kakashi was still rather stressed and it was obvious from his body language, but nevertheless he said in a grateful tone, "Thanks, Tsuande. Really."

"You're welcome, kid," she said with a kind smile, "you're definitely most welcome." She was glad the kid was speaking up a bit more now. He was always so quiet around people he didn't know very well and that had always worried her to some extent.

Interrupting the unusually serene moment between the two, Naruto started wailing loudly once again, somehow having woken up without either of them noticing.

Kakashi looked panicked for a moment, not knowing what it was he should do. For some reason, the fact that his howling was even worse than before set off little alarm bells in his mind.

Honestly, it was as if crying his lungs out was all the kid ever did.

"Calm down, Kakashi!" Tsunade snapped, her moment of kindness having apparently being shattered.

"What's wrong with him? He's much louder than before and it just keeps getting worse."

Tsunade gave him a stern look and said, "It's you, Kakashi. **You're** what's upsetting him. Through some small miracle the kid appears to have become attached to you in the rather brief time you've known each other. It's common fact that babies instantly react when they feel that their guardian is in distress, just as you would if someone you cared about was upset as well."

Kakashi instantly froze up. The kid actually even remotely **liked **him? With all that constant wailing, he was sure that the kid must hate him and that it was gonna be one hell of a journey to get the kid to even tolerate his existence. Even though what Tsunade had said made sense, it still utterly blew him away that the kid connected with him on such a deep level at such a young age.

Once he realized that he would be the one for calming down Naruto this time, he instantly relaxed his body, doing his best to give off a calmer aura in the hopes Naruto would somehow sense it in the way babies just **can **and calm himself down in return.

The results were almost immediate. Naruto very quickly sensed the change within his guardian and calmed down, content to just stare into his singularly visible eye as the tears stopped leaking from his eyes and eventually stopped altogether.

"Here, take him," Tsunade instantly commanded once Naruto had calmed down, "He obviously wants to be with you right now. Why **you** I'll never know but I need to heat up some formula for him anyhow and I'll need two hands for that."

Instead of resisting like he initially would've, he calmly accepted the baby, being careful to replicate Tsunade's practiced hold. If he held the kid a little tighter to his chest than he usually allowed himself to in the small time they had been acquainted, Tsunade or himself didn't comment on the fact.

Once Tsunade was satisfied that Kakashi had Naruto in a good, strong hold, she fiddled around with the pack she had had on her back since she had met up with Kakashi outside the village, quickly finding the formula and a bottle with a rubber teat. She had already been prepared for Naruto's needs before they'd even met up, Kakashi noticed. That's a Sannin for you. Always knew what was needed before it was even needed. They weren't legendary for no reason.

As Tsunade bustled about in Kakashi's kitchen, she instructed Kakashi on all the know-how to looking after a baby: how to attend to his needs, what to do in case certain things happened, what to watch out for, etc. The whole time, Kakashi listened attentively, never once not hanging off every word she said and taking it all in with the full intention to remember every word. Tsuande was highly amused and touched at how the kid was already so avidly taking on his task to protect the child from anything that stood in his way.

Once she had finally finished setting up the formula and testing to see if it was too hot, she shoved the bottle in Kakashi's face, saying determinedly, "You're feeding him. You've gotta learn these things, especially if he is to be **your **son to everyone outside of this room, even including Naruto."

Kakashi didn't even try to fight back. He had finally accepted that she was going to be his guide through these early stages and if he had to put up with her demands constantly to give Naruto a good life, then so be it. He did, however, cringe at the reminder that Naruto was going to be his son to everyone in the village. Even Naruto would have to grow up believing that for some time. Kakashi ignored the fact that lying about such an important part of Naruto's heritage to the kid himself sent a slight pain through his chest.

Kakashi clumsily shifted Naruto to one arm and used his now free hand to maneuver the rubber teat towards Naruto's small lips, the boy graciously accepting the item and suckling away greedily, once again staring up into Kakashi's grey eye as he did so.

Against his wishes, Kakashi lost himself in those ridiculously bright and **blue **eyes once more. He lost all sense of will power when it came to those eyes. It was a few minutes longer before to him it was just Naruto and himself in their own world, his innocent eyes washing over his exhausted frame a kind of peace and serenity he didn't know a mere baby would be capable of conjuring.

He was rudely pulled out of this calming sensation when he heard Tsunade laughing at him from a few paces in front of him, her whole **body **lit up with something that Kakashi couldn't quite identify in the current moment.

"What?" he instantly snapped, whilst still trying to keep his body language reasonably calm so as not to upset Naruto again just as he was falling asleep, still suckling lazily on the rubber teat.

"It's funny, you know," she said in an unreadable tone, "that you two are so in tune with one another despite having barely met. I guarantee that he'll be good for you. You've already bonded so well and I just hope you two can find a brighter future together. Who knows…?"

Kakashi instantly froze up, his mind denying every word that Tsuande said to him. No. Just **no.** This kid wasn't going to be anything more than his charge while he knew him. No, that was it. He wasn't going to let that kid and his stupid blue eyes into his heart. No one was ever getting a free passage through there again. All they ever did was disappoint him in the end. He had learnt from his mistakes. After all, that was what a true shinobi did, no?

"You're wrong," Kakashi said in a dangerous voice, trying very hard not to glare at Tsuande or rouse Naruto from his slumber by gripping him too hard, "this kid is not my **son.** He's not my **friend **or my **family **or whatever the hell else you want to call him. He is my mission and nothing more. Don't ever forget that or try to tell me otherwise. Are we clear?"

Tsuande looked utterly shocked beyond belief, not expecting such a violent retaliation from the kid. "B-but Kakash-"

Kakashi instantly interrupted her, having had enough of her meddling in his thoughts for one day, especially about something so sensitive. "**Are we clear?**"

Tsuande stopped her mindless stuttering and snapped her trap shut. She stared into his eye for a while and, noticing just how serious he was about what he had said, sighed and nodded in defeat. It seemed getting him to just **see **how he really felt wasn't going to happen in one day. Oh well, she would get there eventually. She had to, for both his and Naruto's sakes.

Kakashi relaxed his tense muscles when he noticed her nod of submission, glad that she wasn't going to push the issue…for now. He knew better than to think the old bat would give up on something she believed in so passionately so soon.

"Alright then," Tsuande said in a tone that appeared to be trying to relieve the tense mood in the atmosphere and failing miserably, "let's sit down in the living room for a while. You need a good backstory for Naruto's sudden appearance, so we really should get on that sooner rather than later."

As per her suggestion, they both moved into the living room and sat on the plain but surprisingly comfy couches, facing each other across the coffee table. Naruto still slept soundly in Kakashi's arms, the teat still stuck between his lips even though he wasn't using it anymore.

It took a few hours and the sun was already making its slow rise above the horizon, but eventually they came up with a suitable backstory that should hold up against all people in the village. He would undeniably be facing incredible scrutiny anyhow and the story had to infallible as a result.

The tale they weaved together was that while Kakashi had been on his surveying mission in the Cloud Village for two years, he had met a girl that had caught his interest. No one knew of his presence because he was meant to be 'unnoticed' during his mission and no one knew of his relationship with the girl because they had to keep it a secret as a result of her being from a travelling family that had a high position in their society back where they had come from. It would have been disastrous if the girl had been found out to be seeing a boy that was nothing more than 'a mere shinobi'. Kakashi had chuckled darkly at Tsuande's sneering reference.

The pregnancy had been a total accident and unfortunately the pair of lovers (Kakashi definitely couldn't help but cringe heavily at that one) had had to step up and tell her parents of their secret affair. The parents had undoubtedly been outraged by what they had done and that their 'precious daughter' was now pregnant with a 'tainted child' (Kakashi clutched Naruto tighter at that particular reference).

It had been an awful argument but eventually the parents had forced the girl to give the baby up to Kakashi once it had been delivered and for her to never see either Kakashi or the child again. They themselves would never speak of the incident and forget it had ever happened and Kakashi would take care of the child alone and never mention who the true mother really was.

Kakashi had fought back but eventually realized that the girl was going to do whatever her parents told her to do in the end. Apparently, the girl was a sweet thing but had no backbone whatsoever.

He attended to her needs whenever necessary but her acceptance of her parents' wishes had undoubtedly broken their relationship beyond repair. It didn't help that whenever he came to check up on her and the child's state that they were under the constant scrutiny of her parents' hate-filled glares.

Eventually, the child was born and Kakashi left with the child as per the previous arrangement. The girl, along with her parents, were never to see either the baby or Kakashi again.

No one had seen the child in the week Kakashi had been back before the attack of the Nine-Tails because, come on, who actually ever interacted with Kakashi all that often anyhow and Kakashi certainly wasn't one to have a baby shower or something equally embarrassing and degrading.

His lack of physical features in any way alike to Kakashi's would be explained away by the fact that his mother had rather dominant clan genes and that therefore Naruto had inherited his looks from his mother. It's not like anyone would care about that all that much anyhow.

If anyone were to, for some reason, question why he looked so much like the Fourth Hokage, it would be an unfounded claim. Totally unfounded because, for all intents and purposes, the child of Kushina and Minato had been a **girl** and therefore it would have been impossible for Naruto to be in any way related to the Fourth Hokage. Tsunade would falsify a report that the child had died along with Kushina during the birth, since she had been the mid-wife after all.

Once a few other minor details had been sorted out here and there and Tsunade was sure that Kakashi had memorized everything down to the last detail, she finally noticed just how much Kakashi's one visible eye was drooping. She internally reprimanded herself for being so negligent towards Kakashi's needs because of her constant focus on Naruto's.

She suddenly stood up from the confines of the couch she had been sitting on for such a long time, stretching out her back as she did so. Her sudden actions startled Kakashi out of his exhausted daze and he gave her a questioning glance as she headed towards his front door.

"I'm going out to find the boy a cot somewhere. It's the only thing I didn't bring with me. Try to stay awake until I get back, alright?" she called over her shoulder as she left before Kakashi could reply.

While Tsunade was busy finding Naruto a cot (_don't know where she expects to find one when the village is already so damaged, _Kakashi thought to himself) Kakashi watched said boy sleep, thinking about the future and just how the hell he was supposed to give the kid the future Minato would've wanted for him. There was a lot of pressure riding on his actions regarding Naruto in the future and he didn't know what he'd do if he screwed up and let his sensei down. He didn't want to do such a thing even when the guy was already dead. That would be unacceptable to the teen.

Against Tsuande's request, his eye drifted shut and he fell into a deep sleep, still clutching Naruto in a firm hold that still supported his weak neck. He fell asleep to nostalgic memories of Minato, Kushina and his genin team, reminiscing in their contagious laughter and smiling faces.

And so that was how Tsunade found them. Kakashi with his head slumping forward over Naruto's body, completely zoned out, and Naruto sleeping peacefully in his newly-appointed guardian's arms, clearly content with his dead father's choice of caretaker for the time being.

Tsunade silently walked over, carrying the cot over one shoulder like it weighed nothing as a result of her ridiculous strength, and gently pried Naruto from Kakashi's arms, said teen not even noticing the action due to being so completely and utterly exhausted beyond belief. Usually he was much more aware of his surroundings, even in his slumber, and the fact that he was so tired he didn't even twitch at Tsunade's handling left her rather concerned about his well-being indeed.

She placed the cot opposite Kakashi beside the couch she had been sitting on earlier, making sure it was in a position that he would see it almost immediately as soon as he woke up. She knew the kid well enough by now that she just knew he'd freak out when he woke up and saw Naruto was no longer in the safety of his arms. She then placed Naruto into the cot and placed an orange blanket she found in an old box at the other end of the living room over his tiny form. She leant over and kissed his small forehead before grabbing a different blanket and throwing it over Kakashi, protecting him from the chill still present in the early hours of the morning.

She took one last look at the pair of sleeping boys before silently excusing herself from the house, feeling as if it was her cue to leave them be for now. If they needed anything she was fully aware that Kakashi would come to her, particularly if it were about Naruto.

That thought brought her back to her rather abrupt argument with Kakashi earlier in the kitchen. Although Kakashi insisted that he didn't care for Naruto personally, she was most certainly inclined to believe in the complete opposite. She just knew, **just knew, **that that boy would change the teen in ways nobody could ever imagine. The way he was able to calm down Kakashi at his most stressed just by looking him in the eye and the way he just seemed to give off an indescribable aura of serenity…the kid really did have the potential to save Kakashi from his greatest demon:

**Himself.**

**A/N: So, next chappie finally up! XD I was able to managing finishing by the weekend and the way I worked with this chapter suited me really well so from now new chapters should be up every weekend or at least early the next week. It may depend on what other work I've got to do or whether or not the next chapter is especially difficult or long. I'll let you know if that should change but for now that's the way it's gonna be. As you can see more clearly now, a lot of things are already different from the original storyline. Tsunade is actually in Konoha already and does actually know Kakashi on a more personal basis than in the original. Other things like Kakashi actually having a house rather than an apartment that was pretty much just one tiny room was necessary for finding a way for Naruto to fit in his home. Also btw they fact that Kakashi's actions and thoughts constantly contradict each other is completely intentional. No, he's not schizophrenic, he's just afraid of admitting to himself how he real feels and if he does what that will mean in the future. Um...what else...oh yeah! I don't know if I spelt 'Sannin' right! I looked it up and they had it spelt both that way and 'Sennin' so if you're certain it's the other way please let me know and I'll change it ASAP. Other than that, that's pretty much it. Thank you so much for reading and spare a minute for a review if you can!**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**


	3. Chapter Two

Kakashi woke up slowly the next morning, his body slowly regaining feeling inch by inch until his mind caught up and leisurely-rejoined reality. He languidly stretched his tight muscles, cramped from sleeping on a couch for a few hours straight. His neck was particularly sore and he had to rotate the muscles slightly to give it a good crack to release the built-up tension. He frowned when he shuffled slightly to relieve the numbness in his lower back from sitting on his arse for so long, his body being restricted slightly by a pale blanket that had been carefully and deliberately placed over his form. He frowned even harder when he realized that he didn't remember even throwing the blanket over himself in the first place.

A sudden thought occurred to him in his still sleep-addled mind that perhaps it was Tsunade who had done so, always being one to show people she cares without really showing people she cares. It was the kind of thing you only really came to understand once you knew her better.

Oh, yes, that's right. **Tsunade.**

Instantly, memories flooded his mind, wave after wave of images and accompanied feelings crashing through his mind. He relived the grief once more of losing his surrogate family and the hopelessness that consumed his thoughts when he saw his village and fellow comrades being torn apart when there was hardly much he could do about it alone.

Just as his internal pain was overwhelming his worn mind for what must've been the umpteenth time, a bright and vivid blue flashed before his eyes, almost like a calming ocean but with a gentle fire somewhere within its midst; a contrast that interestingly brought an unusual serenity to Kakashi's dizzying and crushing thoughts.

His natural curiosity instantly got the better of him, trying to decipher the significance of this unique colour to his mind that was becoming more and more aware by the moment. He had been so exhausted by his suffering both mentally and physically that his mind and body were still in recovery mode and not quite functioning up to the usual prodigy-Hatake standard.

It took a few moments for his mind to make the connection between that colour and a pair of eyes, then between a pair of eyes and a face, onto a face that belonged to a baby and then finally onto-

**Naruto.**

Instantly, Kakashi shot up off the couch, ignoring his wounds he had yet to attend to even still, and whipped his head from left to right frantically, desperately searching for his infant. Once he caught sight of the cot placed almost directly in his line of sight (he berated himself silently for being so unobservant even in his current state) he instantly rushed over to it, for some reason needing to see that Naruto was safe within said cot.

He made his way over in a blink of an eye, his ingrained ninja skills useful to him on even the least dangerous of missions, and stared down into the cot, outwardly sighing in relief and slumping his tensed shoulders slightly when he caught sight of a tuft of blond hair and scarred cheeks wrapped up securely in a orange blanket.

Naruto, totally oblivious this time to his guardian's previous distress, was peacefully sleeping his worries away, his eyes lightly closed as his tiny chest rose up and down steadily. He looked so calm and gave off an aura of a happiness of sorts that Kakashi knew he in no way needed to worry about the boy's safety.

Eventually, though, to Kakashi's dismay, he couldn't help but feel a sense of undeniable warmth bloom within him when he noticed one of his miniscule thumbs caught between his rosy lips. He happily suckled away at it, not seeming perturbed by the action in the slightest.

In response to his ludicrous thoughts, Kakashi gripped the edge of Naruto's cot, mad at himself for allowing his feelings to shift in such a…**dangerous **direction.

The more caught up he got in his internal turmoil, heightened dramatically by his rather abrupt return to his harsh reality only a minute or so before, the more he just wanted to make it all go away. He wanted these stupid thoughts like 'Gee, isn't he cute?' or 'Gosh, that just reminds me of the face Kushina used to pull sometimes' to poof out of existence. They brought up something he couldn't identify that he just wasn't ready to deal with yet.

He was so annoyed in fact that, before he could filter his actions through his quick mind, he released his ever-tightening grip on the rail, that felt like it was almost about to give, and reached towards the offending thumb, abruptly ripping it from the confines of the infant's mouth.

In what appeared to be an instant knee-jerk reaction to most even slightly-distressing situations now, Naruto instantaneously opened his tiny mouth and let out a horrendous howl, making his obvious displeasure at such a rude awakening known to, what felt like to Kakashi's over-sensitive ears, the whole damn village.

Once Kakashi's mind finally caught up with his traitorous body, he momentarily froze in the wave of the infant's rather obvious distress, feeling something unidentifiable in the current moment that caused his chest to ache slightly. His actions had been unjust and he couldn't quite fully fight down the urge to do something to in some way apologise for his stupid and rash actions. It wasn't like Naruto had done anything wrong and, to Kakashi's utter dismay, he realized he had taken his twist of emotions out on a newborn **again. **He could most definitely now be considered a bad and undeniably pathetic human being.

He shook away his melancholy thoughts and picked up a very distressed Naruto, being careful once again to hold him correctly and to bounce him the way that Tsunade had demonstrated to him earlier. He even added some useless babble in because of his guilt of screwing up on his mission so often. Tsunade might've said that Naruto had bonded with him, but it kept feeling like to him that he just made the poor kid upset constantly. Kakashi seemed to have that sort of affect on a lot of people apparently, even an infant.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before the kid calmed down. He eventually ended up staring into Kakashi's eye once more, as if he knew exactly the kind of effect they had on him and seemed to enjoy screwing with his head as some sort of payback.

Not one to back down to a challenge, issued by a day-old child or not, he quickly snapped his eyes to look anywhere other than at those damn eyes, his line of sight just happening to be staring directly at his living room clock.

He almost dropped the poor kid when he realized just how late it was. Even though he was still recovering from injuries, had gone through great emotional trauma and had only gone to sleep just when the sun was starting to rise, he didn't think he had **ever **gotten up as late as ten o'clock before. Being a ninja, you got used to getting up rather early for most missions and the habit just ended up kind of sticking, no matter where you were or what you were doing.

Getting over his initial shock, he sighed and went about his new routine of taking care of a baby. He changed his diaper (Ew! Thank God there wasn't much in there this time. Kakashi was sure the kid would've made that predicament rather obvious, though), changed him into a new set of tiny clothes that Tsunade had been thoughtful enough to put in her pack from the night before (Did they **really **have to be **bright orange?**) and wrapped him up in the blanket that had been draped over his own form earlier. He gave the kid a bit of formula for breakfast and got himself some cereal for his own, moving on quickly to lay Naruto in his cot while he **finally **attended to his wounds.

His wounds weren't all that bad compared to many others', but he still needed to do some decent disinfecting and wrapping up of some seriously nasty gashes. Thankfully, he hadn't broken any bones or done any serious damage.

Once he had made quick work of seeing to his wounds (something you became quite adept at when you spent your days as a shinobi), he picked up Naruto from his cot once more and left his home, knowing his first order of business had to be to somehow find Naruto some more supplies even though the village was already in so much peril. Tsunade had been insistent the night before that he do so first thing in the morning and that he was sure to find what he needed at the tents that had temporarily been set up in the village centre to attend to such needs. It had been rather unfortunate that the shops that sold basic needs such as groceries etc. had been at the front of the village and destroyed very suddenly. Tsunade had given him enough to last for a few days tops, but he definitely needed to stock up as soon as possible. He had asked her initially if he should have instead moved his efforts towards helping rebuild the village and offering his services for taking up many vacant spots for missions, rather than getting supplies for Naruto. She had instantly proceeded to go on an incredibly long rant about how irresponsible Kakashi must be if he really thought he could just go off on missions and run around the village when he had a newborn child to look after and that he definitely would not be going on any such errands for a very long time. Kakashi was rather perturbed that he wasn't going to be in action for a long time, but he convinced himself that because this was a mission too he really shouldn't complain. He had assured Tsunade that he'd do as she said and put Naruto first and she had smiled triumphantly at him mid-rant, an emotion swimming in her eyes he was almost too afraid to properly identify.

He was shaken out of his thoughts when he noticed Naruto staring in awe at a butterfly that was fluttering rather closely to his face, his eyes moving around frantically to try and keep up with its white wings. As he continued walking down the dusty path towards where the supply tents were set up, he allowed himself a tiny moment to really take in just how much Naruto looked like his father. He could already tell just by looking at his shock of blond hair and bright blue eyes that he was going to be just as handsome and eye-catching as Minato was. They'd be like two peas in a pod before he knew it.

"Kakashi, is that you?" a voice called to him from a few metres ahead, pulling him out of his reminiscing. He looked up slowly, being incredibly reluctant to face anyone with Naruto in his arms so soon, and saw Gai, Asuma, Kurenai and Anko walking in a huddled group together towards him. It looked like it had been Asuma that had called out to him, his hand already in mid-wave.

Kakashi sighed slightly and moved towards them too, knowing that he would've had to face up to them and many others to come eventually.

They walked up to him with forced smiles, obviously trying to stay some-what cheerful despite their current circumstances. Their fake enthusiasm kind of made him want to puke. It was suffocating and just felt **wrong.**

"Hey, how are y-" Kurenai started to ask politely until she was rudely interrupted by the always loud-mouthed Anko.

"Not to be a pest or anything, 'Kashi, but why in Kami's name is there a freaking kid in your arms? Don't tell me you decided to have kids so soon?" she started in a jesting tone, not believing for a moment that Kakashi was anything more than asexual to pretty much everyone on this planet except his pervy books and knowing for sure he never would've done the deed with some chick, especially being careless enough to have produced **that.**

Everyone was silent while Kakashi stared back at them all, having not expected Anko to accidentally have stumbled onto pretty much his exact cover story so soon; it certainly threw him for a loop.

After such a long period of absolute silence, Gai finally decided he could not contain his usual loudness anymore and shouted at the top of his boisterous lungs, "SHE IS ACTUALLY CORRECT?! THAT YOUTH IS ACTUALLY YOUR MOST SOUGHT-AFTER LEGACY?!"

Kakashi cringed greatly at the fact that not only was Gai not using his inside-voice at all and seriously hurting his ears, but also everyone on the street had stopped to stare disbelievingly. Some appeared awed at the fact that the next generation of the great Hatake family was before their very eyes, while others seemed to look down on Kakashi for being so irresponsible despite his incredible heritage and having a child when he was still so young.

Annoyed at their judgmental stares, he gave them all a hard look, meeting every one of their stares until they had all turned back to whatever it was they had previously been doing, snatching sneaky glances here and there and slyly whispering to each other when they thought Kakashi wasn't looking.

He eventually turned back to the small group before him, giving Gai an annoyed stare. Gai had the graciousness to look a bit guilty for blurting such sensitive information at the top of his lungs.

Great, now **everybody **bloody knew. He sure had **not **expected something like that to happen at all.

The others remained silently shocked for a moment, their stares switching rapidly between Kakashi and Naruto in stunned disbelief. It looked like they were watching a tennis match between the two and Kakashi almost smirked behind his mask.

It was only mere seconds more before Kakashi and Naruto were both crowded by exuberant bodies, everyone rapidly firing questions like 'What's his name?' or 'Who's the mum?' or 'You really had a kid **that **young?' and so on and so forth before Naruto became overwhelmed by the noise and commotion and wailed bloody fucking **again. **Honestly, the habit was getting absolutely **ridiculous.**

Kakashi instantly turned a death glare on the now very silent gathering, proceeding to do what had become an almost instinctual habit and calmed the infant with gentle rocking and useless cooing.

Either he was getting much better at this or Naruto was starting to like him a bit more, because he almost instantly shut up, his face now much more calm as his still-developing eyes tried to focus in on the looming faces.

Kurenai broke the awkward silence by taking a step back from their personal space and saying in a quiet tone, "Gee, that kid really does calm down with you rather quickly. I've never seen someone able to do that so quickly."

"Yeah," Asuma spoke up once more, "I've seen my fair share of little ones in my time and even I haven't seen something like that. He had really started to get a decent wail going too."

Kakashi ignored the awkwardness he felt at the indirect praise and launched into answering all of their questions now that he and Naruto weren't being practically bombarded, telling them the cover story he and Tsunade had come up with, being sure not to leave a single important detail out. He couldn't help but be touched slightly at their concern for his predicament and their willingness to support him in any way they could. He almost smiled at them for what felt like the first time in a long time until Asuma ruined the moment by stating that he still didn't understand how Kakashi had gotten a **kid. **It all still just sounded way too crazy.

"Uh well gee, Asuma," Anko started off in a mocking tone, "I'd figure it would've happened the usual way. You know, boy meets girl, boy thinks girl's hot, boy then tries to-"

"Ok ok I know I know! Geez, Anko, you're such a creep sometimes, you know that?" Asuma retorted, his cheeks flaming slightly when Anko pointed out rather sarcastically just how stupid his question really sounded to everybody else.

They ended up bickering quite heatedly with each other, Kurenai trying to gently calm down the embarrassed Asuma trying to defend his pride and Gai loudly exclaiming just how unyouthful it was to fight amongst themselves when they were all fellow comrades and were meant to be tackling the flames of youth together.

Naruto's face started to screw up slightly at the loudness of the rapidly-escalating argument and Kakashi decided that enough was enough for now and snuck away in the commotion, an amused glint in his eye as he bounced the kid into a light nap and proceeded to go do what he went out to do in the first place.


	4. Chapter Three

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

That sound had been consistently repeated over and over again for the last hour or so, never wavering and never missing its target. The tiny red spot was hit right on the bull's-eye every damn time like clockwork, the kunai whizzing with impressive speed as they made their way forward like perfectly drawn arrows.

What could be said, the Hatakes weren't prodigies for nothing.

Kakashi wiped the minimal sweat off of his brow and stalked towards the posts set about thirty metres or so in front of him, ready to retrieve the imbedded kunai and repeat his ritual once more. It was tiring and his arms were starting to ache but it definitely paid off. It took a lot of hard work to keep up his reputation as the incredible 'Copy-Cat Kakashi' or 'Kakashi of the Sharingan' or whatever incredibly original name someone or other had come up with.

He was just about to start yanking them out of the abused wooden post (unfortunately, having a good throwing arm made it much harder to pull the damn things out later), when he heard a slight giggle off to his left about five or so metres behind his bent back.

He abandoned his endeavor and instead straightened his back, turning around slowly to see what the fuss was about. He couldn't help but soften slightly when he saw Naruto twirling around, by the tail, the fox Tsunade had given him on some unknown whim a few months back (he suspected it was a twisted sense of humour). He, for some reason, seemed to think it was vaguely funny how the little brown creature flopped around like a ragdoll this way and that with every uncoordinated flick of his little wrist, his blue eyes lit up with his mirth as they followed the unusual movements. He was currently lying on his back on a thick blanket out in the backyard where Kakashi was practicing, a common routine for the two by now.

It'd been six months since Kakashi had taken Naruto in and they'd gotten into a routine that both of them seemed to be able to be happy about. Kakashi was doing his best to make sure that Naruto was taken care of correctly and made sure consistently that Naruto was growing up to be a healthy and happy boy. His sensei would've wanted that and therefore it was his duty to provide such comforts for Naruto. Besides, as he had said to myself many times before, he wasn't heartless. The kid really did deserve a good home life. He had even stopped lashing out at the kid every time he did something that stirred unwanted feelings inside of him and had learnt to just grin and bear it, knowing that he had to do what was fair by Naruto first despite his own sentiments.

In fact, Tsunade was so impressed by his progress over the months that she happily exclaimed one day that Kakashi was becoming a real role-model father towards the kid. Kakashi had been utterly dismayed and begged her never to say such things again. It made him feel weird when she said things like that and he wasn't quite sure why. In fact, he probably never even wanted to know.

Kakashi wasn't the only one who had made progress, though. Naruto also had developed more from his previous newborn self. He was about twice his original size now and his soft blond hair had grown out a bit more as well. His limbs definitely had more definition to them and he was gaining some serious pounds, something Kakashi was careful to keep a watchful eye over. Tsunade insisted that gaining so much extra weight was completely normal for babies, but Kakashi refused for 'his heir' to turn out to be an overweight monstrosity. He would never live down the absolute shame.

By now, Naruto could crawl rather well but was never allowed to do so unless Kakashi was there the whole way, watching over his every move like a hawk. Tsunade had laughed at his stubborn behavior but Kakashi was gonna be damned if he let the kid fall over and hit his head or something. He couldn't help but be paranoid when he found out from Asuma that babies had very soft skulls for a long time and that head injuries could turn out being much worse for the little buggars than they first appeared. It was fortunate for Kakashi's sanity that the kid was pretty damn lazy and much preferred either laying around on a blanket or being held in Kakashi's secure arms.

Which brought him onto his next point: Naruto refused to be held by anyone other than Kakashi; it was really that simple. No ands, ifs or buts. If anyone other than Kakashi held the kid, he'd instantly wriggle around or, in some cases, break down into sobs (yes, he still did that way too often. Bloody loud-mouthed winger) until that unfortunate person handed the baby straight back to his guardian. Even Tsunade couldn't hold him anymore and she'd been a huge part of his life since the day he was born. He would immediately calm back down once he was aware that he was being held against Kakashi's warm chest once more. By now, the situation had even escalated to the point where Kakashi had to sleep in the same room as Naruto the whole night or he'd end up yelling out all his damn troubles to the entire village. He was sure by now that his neighbours were about as deaf as he was at this point, if their dirty looks in the morning were anything to go by.

Matters weren't helped much when Kakashi also had to face feeding time on top of that. Naruto had now been given the all clear by Tsunade to be able to start up eating that disgusting baby mush some people actually called **food. **Kakashi had yet to figure out just how the hell anyone had ever come up with that idea. It looked like a tin of vomit to Kakashi and honestly made him want to puke up his stomach contents in return. He couldn't help but gag slightly when he brought the spoon of vomit up to the kid's mouth and watched him devour it hungrily. The kid actually **liked **the stuff. It was utterly disturbing to say the least.

Other than those fun experiences, though, everything had gone pretty smoothly. Everyone had bought his and Tsunade's cover story, even the reinstated Third Hokage himself. He had been undeniably shocked by the discovery and had also been reluctant to allow Kakashi full reprieve off of active duty for such a long time when the village had been so heavily damaged and needed his expertise now more than ever, but after an incredibly outraged rant from his former, busty student, they had all managed to come to an agreeable compromise. Kakashi had been reinstated as a special jounin rather than an ANBU officer and had been allowed to remain off of all active duty until Naruto was about one year old. By then, it would be acceptable for Kakashi to start off on short missions and for Naruto to be left in someone else's care while he was gone, probably Tsunade. He found it hard to imagine ever allowing anyone else to be responsible for Naruto in such a way. Not only did he not trust them with his safety, he also didn't trust them not to find out his secret. No incidents had occurred yet, but both Kakashi and Tsunade knew it was only a matter of time before the metaphorical 'other shoe' dropped.

Kakashi was pulled away from the grim turn his thoughts had taken when he heard a thump behind him and a large shout of, "HELLO, MY MOST YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS! HOW ARE YOU BOTH ON THIS FINE AND LIVELY MORNING? THE WARM SUNSHINE IS BRINGING OUT GREAT JOY IN EVERYONE TODAY, DO YOU NOT THINK SO?"

Jesus Christ, sometimes he swore that Gai lived purely for the purpose of pissing him off. He didn't know what he'd done in a past life to deserve to be followed around by the green-clad figure, but it sure as hell must've been pretty damn bad.

"Gai," Kakashi started off with a sigh, "how many times have I told you that I actually have a front door? You can't just keep jumping down into my yard whenever you feel like it. It's plain common courtesy." He finished his scolding with a bored look aimed at Gai, something he'd learned to perfect when he didn't want someone to know what he was thinking or if he just plain wanted them to go away. Every now and then, when he was feeling a little vindictive, he couldn't help but also use it sometimes just to piss people off. Nobody hates it more than when someone acts completely disinterested in them, Kakashi had come to learn. It was a useful little tidbit of information indeed.

"DO NOT WORRY, MY ETERNAL RIVAL! I WOULD NOT HAVE GONE AGAINST A COMRADE'S WISHES UNLESS I HAD A VERY GOOD REASON! THE SCORE OF OUR CONTESTS HAS YET TO BE SETTLED! WE MUST CONTINUE OUR YOUTHFUL ENDEAVOUR AND COMPETE TO DISPLAY OUR GREAT FLAMES OF YOUTH!" He finished his very inspiring speech with a peace sign pumped into the air and a show of his overly whitened teeth. Like, seriously, what the hell did the guy use to actually make them **sparkle**?

Kakashi restrained himself from smacking his face into his palm and said mildly, "Gai, I have a kid to look after, remember? I can't just run off to compete with you whenever I feel like it anymore." Kakashi didn't remember quite when it was that Naruto had become such a great excuse to use against the green monster but he was gonna milk it for all it was worth. He ignored the fact that it felt a little like he was using Naruto. If you had to face Gai head on, you'd better believe you'd make the exact same decision.

After Kakashi had pointed out the obvious, Gai looked around for a moment until he spotted the boy still in the same position on the grass as before, swinging around the little brown fox by the tail.

Gai stalked forward and bent down slightly and said to the kid in his usual great, booming voice, "HELLO, MY ETERNAL RIVAL'S MOST YOUTHFUL CHILD! HOW ARE YOU ON THIS FINE MORNING?"

Thankfully, Naruto had appeared to have gotten used to Gai's usual loudness and no longer burst into tears in response. This time, he simply turned his eyes away from the fox for a moment, let his bright blue eyes take a quick roam over his face and then simply turned back to what he was doing, apparently disinterested in Gai by all standards.

Kakashi seriously had to restrain himself from not bursting out laughing. In fact, he really couldn't help but let a slight snicker escape. Apparently, the kid had taken up his habit of just ignoring Gai until he hopefully found someone else more youthful to bother. He felt a slight swell in his chest at the thought but it was quickly ignored when he heard yet again another loud burst from Gai's mouth.

"HOW VERY UNYOUTHFUL, TO IGNORE A COMRADE WHEN THEY ARE GREETING YOU! HE HAS BEEN AROUND KAKASHI FOR FAR TO LONG AND HAS PICKED UP FAR TOO MANY OF HIS HIP AND COOL HABITS! WILL THE GREEN BEAST OF KONOHA NEVER TRIUMPH OVER THIS HATAKE GENE?"

The poor guy looked like he was about to start bursting into tears, so Kakashi took a bit of pity on him and distracted him by saying, "If there's nothing else, Gai, I'd really like to get back to my training. I've already missed out on a few minutes as it is."

Gai turned to back to Kakashi and then looked between him and the kunai imbedded in the posts a few times. He gaze kept switching until his eyes actually **lit up.** No joke, Kakashi could actually **see **the flames burning in his eyes. He hated to admit that perhaps they were the 'flames of youth' reflected in his gaze.

"DO NOT WORRY, MY ETERNAL RIVAL!" Gai said as he marched on over to the kunai posts and yanked out the dangerous instruments imbedded in them one by one, "I HAVE HAD A MOST WONDERFUL EPIPHANY! IF YOU CANNOT LEAVE THE CHILD HERE ALONE, THEN WE SHALL NOT LEAVE THIS COMPOUND AT ALL! IN FACT, WE SHALL NOT EVEN LEAVE THIS YARD! LET US ENGAGE IN A MOST PASSIONATE COMPETITION OF KUNAI THROWING! WHOEVER MANAGES TO HIT THE POST ON THE BULL'S-EYE THE MOST TIMES IN A MINUTE SHALL WIN THIS ROUND OF OUR ETERNAL CONTEST! LET US BEGIN AT ONCE, IT IS MOST UNYOUTHFUL NOT TO START OUR COMPETITIONS RIGHT AWAY!"

Well, bang goes that idea of Naruto being the perfect, infallible excuse.

Kakashi sighed dramatically and walked forward to accept the kunai handed to him by Gai, his ever-present sparkling smile visible once more. Kakashi knew better than to argue with Gai about these ridiculous contests. He wouldn't stop pestering Kakashi until he gave in so he may as well get it over and done with.

And so the games began. At first, Kakashi had been confident that he would win. After all, Gai was a master in taijutsu and therefore was not as specialized in weapons training as Kakashi was. He lazily threw the kunai one after the other, knowing every time that'd he hit the target without fail and that he really didn't need to rush to earn more points.

It wasn't until Kakashi looked over to see Gai's progress that things really started to heat up between the two. Kakashi had looked over to expect that Gai had perhaps a few less kunai in the posts than he did and then turn back to continue his easy win. Unfortunately for him, however, Gai actually had about ten more in the posts than Kakashi and was still going strong, not missing a single target and his throwing arm moving so fast that Kakashi would need his Sharingan to see it as anything more than a green blur.

It was like a switch went off in Kakashi's mind and he instantly turned back to his post and started throwing kunai just as fast as Gai was. He wasn't about to get outdone but **Gai **of all people; not in something that he should've been far more specialized in. Kakashi may appear laid-back and disinterested most of the time to others, but he sure as hell still had his pride and it wasn't about to be snatched away by **Gai. **Like, come on: it's **Gai.**

They were so caught up in beating each other in the last twenty seconds, Kakashi having quickly caught up and both of them being neck-at-neck, that they didn't realize that the posts were really far more abused than Kakashi had first thought them to be. He normally would've replaced them by now but looking after Naruto was more tiring than he thought it was going to be and he honestly just hadn't gotten around to it.

With one last throw from the both of them when there were only ten seconds left, every single one of the posts broke to pieces, not being able to take the onslaught of kunai anymore.

Instantly, both Gai and Kakashi stopped mid-throw, blinking at each other, then at the destroyed posts, then at each other again. They honestly couldn't believe that they had been competing **that bad.** Never once had they caused so much damage in their contests and they'd had their fair share of pretty daring competitions in the past.

They were both pulled out of their unexpected shock when they heard an uncontrollable giggle and loud clapping sound from where Naruto was still lying on his blanket. They both quickly and simultaneously turned back to the kid to see him laughing hysterically while uncoordinatedly clapping his little hands madly.

Both of their mouths were dropped open (Kakashi's obviously being covered by his mask) as they stared at the kid that looked like he was so amused he was about to wet his pants. They hadn't had any idea that Naruto had been watching the whole ordeal and they honestly couldn't comprehend why the kid found the destruction of the posts so God damn **funny.**

Gai was the first to snap out of their shared trance and exclaimed delightedly, "WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! HE RECOGNISES GREAT TALENT WHEN HE SEES IT! HE IS A TRUE SHINOBI IN THE MAKING! I AM MOST HONOURED TO BE ABLE TO HAVE WITNESSED SUCH DEDICATION TO THE FLAMES OF YOUTH!"

As Gai approached Naruto and continued ranting on about how great a shinobi he was gonna become some day, Kakashi stayed stock still and just stared at Naruto still happily giggling away.

A shinobi. One day, Naruto would be a shinobi.

That thought alone was enough to tighten Kakashi's chest slightly and therefore make his breaths slightly more ragged, and it wasn't just because of the intense workout he had been through only moments before. The idea of Naruto's bright blue eyes becoming clouded by guilt and his smile turned down in an expression of deep grief seemed so unfair to the elder Hatake. It was inevitable that if Naruto became a shinobi, his aura of purity and sheer happiness would be dimmed due to the awful sights he would have to face and the terrible decisions he would be forced to make for the rest of his life.

Kakashi's eyes slowly trailed down to the excited hands grabbing out at nothing in particular, his mind not being able to help but imagine them covered in the dark red blood of enemies. The mere thought of Naruto one day losing his innocence and becoming a cold killing machine like Kakashi himself, with no family or friends left to call his own, brought on a sense of despair that he hadn't allowed himself to feel for a long time. The kid's future had already been decided the day he was born and Kakashi had no idea how this hadn't occurred to him in the six months he had known Naruto: the boy was destined to become a murderer. Because that was what shinobi were in the end. Sure, the good ones did what they did because it was their duty to protect their village at all costs, even at the cost of their souls and their own lives, but it didn't change the fact that they literally and figuratively they had the blood of others on their very own hands. They lived for the sole purpose of destroying others to keep their people safe. It was grim and it sounded unfair when Kakashi knew that sometimes killing others was the only way possible to stop them from hurting the people you care about, but it was nonetheless true.

And Kakashi couldn't help but hate the fact that an infant was going to be forced to become just like the rest of them in the end.

That was it, Kakashi had to get out of there. He couldn't stay there thinking thoughts like that any longer or he really would lose his Goddamn mind…and he was taking Naruto with him. He felt the need to be near the kid for some reason and make sure he was happy right now, as if in an effort to make up for what he would inevitably face in the future. Not only was he to be a shinobi, but he was also the Nine-Tails' jinchuuriki and it was only a matter of time before he knew of that too. Secrets so dangerous as the one Naruto carried inside of him didn't stay hidden forever, as much as Kakashi would like it if they did.

Kakashi snapped out of his depressed daze and strode forward with purpose to Naruto, who was still ignoring Gai as he tried to get him to listen about how great his genes were and that he had nothing to worry about when it came to becoming a shinobi. Kakashi almost cringed when he realized Gai was talking about how likely he was to stay alive as a ninja. If Kakashi had anything to do with it, that kid would live to be old and grey before he kicked the bucket, shinobi or not. Nobody was so much as touching Naruto if he had anything to do about it.

With grim determination, he snatched up a slightly stunned Naruto and jumped gracefully over his fence and onto the street below, leaving behind a much more stunned Gai to try and figure out just where they had gone. Kakashi hoped that Gai actually used his front door this time when he finally gave up and left.

Kakashi trudged slowly down the dusty streets of Konoha, wondering exactly what it was he was going to do now that he and Naruto were out and about getting the fresh air he so desperately felt he needed at that moment. He really needed to clear his head of all those thoughts that disturbed him so much.

He ended up just walking wherever his feet took him in the end, having no idea where to go because he just didn't know exactly what it was he was looking for at the moment. It was hard to think of possible destinations anyhow when all he could think about and see was Naruto. Naruto: smiling at the pigeons below him pecking at crumbs on the street, Naruto: giggling happily at anyone that greeted him, Naruto: looking into Kakashi's eyes and there were just so, so, so blue and he felt like he could get lost in that serene and calming blue for the rest of his life and never really mind-

Until he heard a completely different kind of giggle from across the street outside of the Yamanaka flower shop. Three teenage girls around about his age stood in a huddle whispering to each other as they stared and pointed at Kakashi slowly trudging along the street. Every single one of them blushed fantastically when he spared them a bored glance and he could almost hear their internal groans when he quickly just turned back and kept right on walking. They were all rather pretty in a plain sort of way, sure, but Kakashi wasn't interested in a bunch of giggling fan girls. He had, on many occasions, girls following him around with hearts in their eyes. Maybe it was the mysterious mask he wore, or his aloof attitude, or his reputation. Kakashi didn't know and he sure as hell didn't care. He honestly would rather that they'd just go away.

"U-um excuse me, y-you wouldn't h-h-h-happen to be Kakashi H-Hatake, w-w-would you?" a meek voice asked his back somewhat politely.

He almost just kept on walking, but couldn't help but feel bad for just abandoning her there when he could tell by her mad bout of stuttering that it had taken a lot of courage to approach him.

He internally sighed and pivoted to face her, once again giving her a very bored glance and practically exuding a 'piss off' vibe. Sure, the girl hadn't done all that much wrong but he really wasn't in the mood right now…not that he ever really **was '**in the mood'…

"U-um right, of course you are. W-what a stupid question. So, u-um my f-friends and I-" she paused for a moment there and seemed to have an internal debate with herself for a few moments. She looked like she was trying to decide something very important and she was really starting to take a long time after about thirty seconds or so had passed and he was almost about to really do what he wanted to before and just turn around and keep on walking-

When he felt a warm hand on the exposed part of his arm that was still clutching onto Naruto securely. He looked at the appendage in mild shock and then up to the face of the person that the appendage belonged to. He almost stumbled when he saw that the girl who had been so shy and embarrassed only moments before was now actually **touching** him and fluttering her eyelashes at him as she stared boldly straight into his single gray eye. He didn't think he'd ever had any of the girls that followed him around actually bring up the nerve to touch him before. It was just an unspoken convention for them: you could admire the Kakashi from afar, you could even walk up to and speak to the Kakashi, but you never ever ever **touched **the Kakashi. **Ever.**

He was still trying to get over her drastic, schizophrenic behavior, when she said to him in an overly sweet tone, "Sorry about all that nonsense earlier. You're just so mysterious and I didn't know what to do with myself. As I was saying earlier I-"

She stopped what was obviously a practiced routine that her and her little buddies had probably forced her to perform for him (yes, he did know that some girls did that on a regular basis, he wasn't oblivious) when she noticed that Kakashi was no longer listening and instead was staring attentively at the baby in his arms.

Kakashi had stopped listening pretty quickly when he noticed that Naruto had started to wriggle a bit. He often did that with Kakashi on the rare occasion that he decided he wanted to have a good ol' crawl. Just because he preferred to be held didn't mean that **sometimes **he didn't want to get on the floor and go go go.

Unfortunately for the little buggar, he couldn't really just let him wander around out in the village where anything could happen and Kakashi just might not be there to help him out in time. Heck, he was so small that people would probably just step on him and not even realize he had been in there in the first place.

And so he petted his absently and said some words in a reassuring tone, knowing that even though Naruto couldn't understand the words that he was saying that he at least could take comfort from Kakashi's gentle voice. It was mildly degrading to have to speak in such a way, but if that's what Naruto needed, then it was obvious that that was what Kakashi had to do.

He looked up rather suddenly from his soothing ministrations when he heard an excited squeal. He ended up tracing the sound quickly back to the girl who was still standing before him, her ridiculous persona she had put on for him before wiped away and instead replaced with an excited look as she watched Kakashi perform his task. It was then that it all finally clicked in his mind. This wasn't just the usual 'oh my God Kakashi's so amazing, let's go follow him'. No, this time they appeared to be even more excited and daring than usual because Naruto was with him. Apparently, girls appeared to really like it when guys had babies. Didn't really make much sense to Kakashi, but that just happened to be the way it was, it seemed.

He gave the girl an annoyed look when she let out another apparently uncontrollable squeal and actually started shaking slightly with barely-suppressed glee. It wasn't long before her eyes strayed from Kakashi still petting Naruto's crown of blonde hair and once again looked up into his eye.

She paled slightly and smacked a hand to her mouth once she realized just what she had unconsciously done. Her cheeks then flamed bright red with embarrassment and she returned to her habit of stuttering when she said to him, "I-I didn't mean to do that! I-I-It's just that y-you're so cute together and I just couldn't c-control myself! S-sorry about that!"

Now that his suspicions were confirmed, he bent his head slightly from looking at the deranged girl to instead glare into Naruto's orbs that were watching him in return. Why was it that this baby seemed to cause trouble for him without even trying? It's like this kid was just destined to be an eternal pain in his arse.

The more he stared into those bright blue eyes, though, the more Kakashi's resolve to stay irrationally mad at him faded. In fact, it practically disappeared into thin air as soon as their stares met; a cold, silver steel mixing with a warm, peaceful blue to create an unlikely but seamless match.

Like usual, the spell Naruto's eyes constantly cast on Kakashi was broken all too soon when he noticed that the girl's other friends had built up courage of their own and had come over to join her in cooing over the pair. They took no notice of Kakashi's annoyance practically radiating off of him as they giggled and talked rapidly with each other while throwing in a few pointing fingers at the two every now and then. Honestly, when girls got excited it was like they didn't even speak English.

Having had more than enough…ah…**excitement** for today, Kakashi used their need to gossip about 'just how adorable they were together' to escape unnoticed onto a near-by rooftop. He hopped from one rooftop (obviously being very careful to keep Naruto in a firm hold) to the other as he made his way back home as quickly as possible, hoping that the fan girls hadn't already noticed he was gone and tried to chase after him. Seriously, they actually did that sometimes. It was just incomprehensible how far some of them would go on many occasions to Kakashi. He didn't think anything in this world was more unpredictable to him than fan girls and, with Kakashi's current occupation, that was actually saying quite a lot.

It wasn't long before he made his way home (thankfully not followed by his previous fan girls) and pulled the door open with one hand, balancing Naruto carefully in the crook of his other arm, and stepped inside slowly. He relished in the fact that he could no longer sense Gai's chakra and would finally get some peace and quiet. Gai and fan girls in one day were just way more than any sane human being could handle.

He was just about to cross on over to his living room and lay down a rather sleepy looking Naruto into his cot (apparently he was just as tired out by all the action as Kakashi himself) and hopefully get in a good rest himself when he was startled slightly by a far to familiar voice saying from the region of his kitchen, "Well well well, look who's finally back."

Kakashi walked the short distance into his kitchen and gave Tsunade a reproachful look when he said in retaliation, "You're one to talk. You said you'd only be gone a couple of days and it's been a week already."

"Touché, kid," Tsunade said with an impressed look in her eyes. She knew Kakashi had it in him to talk back pretty well but he often just didn't care enough to say more than what he felt was strictly necessary. In the last six months she had made it a mission of her's to get the kid to open up more to her, but it was a long and trying road and she'd had very minimal success in such a long time span. In fact, it looked like the only one Kakashi ever really showed any true emotion for was his dead loved ones or Naruto. She felt that him bonding with the boy so closely (despite his many aggressive protests) was very sweet and all, but he really needed to accept a wider range of support than just a six-month old baby. She tried to be around as much as she could but she still had missions to do (just like the one she had been on for the last week) and therefore she was very limited in her options. Still, though, she did her best and Kakashi seemed to appreciate it in his own kind of way. That was enough for her at the moment.

"I didn't mean to take so long," she started up again in the silence that had followed while she had been lost in her thoughts, "I just didn't quite expect all of the trouble that I ran into. Missions are like that sometimes I guess. Anyhow, I just thought I'd drop by to see how you a-"

She interrupted herself when she finally realized that Kakashi seemed to be far more engrossed in his own thoughts as he stared at Naruto very quickly nodding off into the land of sleep. She was pretty sure that he hadn't heard anything past her first sentence to him and shoved down her annoyance at the fact when she realized that he was giving off a much grimmer aura than usual.

"Kakashi," she said more harshly than she had intended, said teenager instantly snapping his head up to look her in the eye and shaking himself slightly from his daze, "what's on your mind? You seem pretty down. Is it about Naruto? Did something happen while I was gone?" Dear God she hoped the Nine-Tails hadn't already decided to make his move or someone hadn't discovered his secret. She remained calm despite her rising internal panic. She just knew it had to have something to do with Naruto because Kakashi only ever got this upset these days if it was over the infant held within his arms.

He nodded slightly and said in a quiet voice as his eyes trailed back to look at the now sleeping boy, "Gai came over earlier today and at one point said that Naruto was going to become a great ninja. It's stupid, I know, that it never really occurred to me but I just…I just don't want him to turn out like…well, you know…like-"

"You," Tsunade interrupted when she realized that the kid was losing the nerve to just blurt out what he really meant, instead resorting to a rather rare hesitance in speech for the boy, "You're terrified that he'll end up just like you and you hate the fact that this has all been predetermined despite the fact that he's still only just a baby."

Kakashi once again snapped his head up to look at her, except this time in undeniable shock. How had she known just exactly how he felt about the whole situation? It was like she was reading his mind as if his thoughts were tattooed across his body for all to see.

"Don't look so shocked, kid," she said with a sad smirk, "I've thought more than once about it myself. Do you want to know what I tell myself to stop from losing my mind over the whole matter?" At Kakashi's hesitant nod and eager look forming in his visible eye, she continued with an unwavering certainty in both her tone and facial expression, "I think about the fact that it was never really our decision in the first place. This kid belongs to Kushina and Minato first and foremost and their wishes for his future should come first. They would've wanted him to be a ninja just like his parents because they would've known that Naruto would turn out to be just as brave and strong as they were and have just as much will to protect this village as they carried within themselves too. This boy carries the Nine-Tails inside of him, the most powerful being on this Earth, and it'd be stupid of us to think we could shelter him from the dangers he will undeniably face. Besides, do you really think that Naruto would grow up to be one to cower away from the slightest bit of danger when it appeared? No, we both know he wouldn't because he has the Will of Fire and the blood of two of the most powerful shinobi this village had ever seen running through his veins. He wasn't just destined to be a ninja, he was **born **for this. I just know it." She finished that last sentence with a heart-felt whisper and one of her hands rising up to clutch at her clothing just over her heart tightly.

Kakashi was utterly stunned beyond belief for a moment, a series of conflicting emotions battling within his mind all at once. Slowly but surely, though, the truth and deep feeling in Tsunade's words conquered his earlier worries for Naruto's future and he was able to see clearly just what he had to do for Naruto. She was right, the kid was meant to be a ninja. His parents would've wished their legacy to continue with their only son and he just knew that Naruto would be able to pull it off. The kid may only be six months old and he may only be looking after him because it was his duty, but it didn't change the fact that he couldn't help but looks into those heart-felt eyes and see that blinding smile and just **believe **in him; believe in him in a way he'd never really even been able to believe in himself.

"Kakashi?" Tsunade asked quietly, carefully trying to gauge how well he was dealing with what she had said.

Kakashi steeled himself instantly and stared into Tsunade's eyes determinedly, saying with absolute resolve evident in his voice, "You're right. You're absolutely right. Naruto was meant for this path and he will succeed wherever his road takes him, I know it…but I'll die before I let him do it alone. I promised Minato I'd keep his son safe and I'd rather cut out my own tongue than fail in such a request. I swear that I'll make sure that Naruto turns out to be the ninja his parents would've wanted him to be and I'll do everything in my power to make sure that it doesn't all lead to disaster. **That **is what it means to really follow one's duty to the best of their ability."

Tsunade gave him an appraising look after he had finished his speech, her shoulders slumping unnoticeably. She had wanted to make him see her point of view and accept that unfortunately it really was the right choice, but she hadn't expected him to want to take on the responsibility of guiding Naruto down this path alone. That burden shouldn't be his alone to carry. She also wasn't particularly pleased that he still referred to his taking care of Naruto as only a duty, but any attempts by her to make him see otherwise had only been met with absolute hostility and she'd just eventually given up, knowing that one way or another Kakashi would be have to face what he felt sooner or later, whether he liked it or not.

She straightened her lax posture before she could get too lost in her musings to herself and said in a commanding voice, "This isn't your burden to carry alone. We'll both protect him as he learns to walk this road; **together.**"

Kakashi felt a warmth spill into his chest at her support and turned his gaze to look down at the peacefully resting Naruto, somehow not being able to meet Tsuande's stare after that succinct speech. He let his eyes trail over Naruto's rather distinguishing looks and once again vowed to himself that he'd keep this kid safe from the repercussions of his secrets he had yet to discover and from the hard life of a ninja.

He didn't known how he'd ever live with himself if he failed in his promise.

**A/N: So, I updated 2 chappies in a row! Yay! Be warned that this is probably the only time this will happen. It was just fortunate that ch. 2 wasn't very long and that I had an especially free weekend this time around. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed that little extra kick! :) I don't really have anything to say off the top of my head about the chapters other than I guess now you're seeing that Kakashi's mask is cracking a bit more and despite his resistance more and more of Naruto is seeping through those cracks. In the next chapter you'll see a lot more of that happening and even some action so stay tuned! If there's anything you want to ask me just put it in a review or PM me and I'll get back to you ASAP. Also, as usual, give a review if you can! . The next chapter should be up sometime next weekend or early next week like these ones were. I don't write action that often so it might take a bit of time to get it to a decent standard. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed and that you'll continue to read the story!**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**


	5. Chapter Four

Kakashi had a great dilemma at the present moment. For someone like the Copy-Cat Ninja, it was a rather unusual feat. Being the renowned shinobi he was, he was usually able to make the right decision in a split-second without wavering. In fact, that was the only way he had stayed alive sometimes, particularly when he had first made chunin and started to take up some **real **missions.

His current indecision was this: should he answer the door, or should he not answer the door?

It was a much harder decision than he thought it was going to be. Sure, his life probably wasn't in danger and he probably wouldn't suffer any horrific damage if he just got up and opened the damn thing, but it was the **morning **and Kakashi didn't want to see **anybody **at **any **time of the day…but particularly in the morning. Besides, it probably wasn't all that important anyhow…well at least he could hope it wasn't. Kakashi didn't have any people skills whatsoever on a regular basis, but he was particularly unskilled in this area in the morning. People and mornings just didn't add up for him, an equation with no solutions.

The only person, in fact, that he could actually remotely tolerate in the morning was Naruto…and that was really only because he **had to.** It's not like he could just kick the kid out whenever he wanted some peace and quiet alone, no matter how much he'd desperately like to sometimes. He wasn't all that bad (although he was still sometimes obnoxiously loud) it's just that Kakashi didn't really like being around people all that much in general. So many of them were just so Goddamn **annoying **in one way or another. He just couldn't stand them most of the time.

Unfortunately for him in the current moment, Kakashi had been raised his whole life to be a good little shinobi and to answer the door whenever anyone knocked, no matter how much you really didn't want to. You never knew if it was an urgent summons from the Hokage or something of the sort. Kakashi had a feeling that the excuse 'I didn't want have to get off my arse and actually have to **socialize **for once in my life' wouldn't hold up when asked why he had missed out on an important meeting or something. He may still be off of active duty, but he was still called in for a few meetings and to give advice every now and then. Tsunade was available, thankfully, whenever such situations arose and so he could freely go along without having to worry about Naruto's safety.

And so Kakashi was a role-model shinobi and got up from watching Naruto eat (or more like utterly destroy) his breakfast banana in mild fascination and disgust and trudged reluctantly towards the door that sounded like it was going to snap in half from the incessant knocking on the other side. He ignored the fact that perhaps the door was being treated so brutally because he hadn't worked up the nerve to answer it until about a minute or so after the first knock.

He slowly turned the silver handle of his front door and opened it a fraction, not being one to just allow any old random to take a peak into his home. Privacy was one of the few luxuries he had left these days.

Unfortunately, a certain busty woman had other ideas about such small luxuries and proceeded to fling the door open with an angry flick of her wrist, her iron-melting stare meeting the shocked eye of the door's current owner in a flourish. Fortunately, Kakashi took a small step back before the door whacked straight into his stunned face.

There was a rather long and tense pause for a moment while Tsunade allowed the eldest Hatake to realize just what it was he had done wrong. In all that time Kakashi had been fighting against his will power, he had never even thought once to himself that perhaps it was Tsunade on the other side of the door.

Big mistake.

Once Tsunade was satisfied that Kakashi had had enough time to ponder his obvious mistake (she felt a vindictive triumph when she saw the grim realization dawning in his single grey eye) she said in a deadly voice, "And just what the hell were you doing for the past minute or so that you couldn't answer YOUR OWN FRICKING DOOR?! THIS COULD'VE BEEN SOMEONE WITH AN URGENT MESSAGE OR SUMMONS FROM YOUR VERY OWN HOKAGE AND YOU WERE JUST SITTING ON YOUR ARSE! I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH YOU IRRATIONALLY HATE PEOPLE IN GENERAL, BUT IT IS AN UNWRITTEN RULE THAT YOU ALWAYS ANSWER YOUR FRICKING DOOR IF YOU ARE A SHINOBI! HAVE I MADE MYSELF QUITE CLEAR?"

Kakashi almost took a step back when the woman started advancing towards him near the end of her speech. She even started to jab her finger at him very harshly right against his chest as if she was just wishing it was one of her own kunai instead. The woman was well known for her impatience and intolerance for 'rude behaviour' and was quick to let you know very **clearly **when you had over-stepped your bounds even slightly. It had been very unwise of Kakashi to not have anticipated that Tsunade would come to visit him today…**very **unwise indeed.

Kakashi almost yelped when Tsunade had gotten sick of waiting for his reply while he was lost in his grim thoughts and repeated harshly with a wicked gleam of anger in her eyes, "ARE WE GODDAMN CLEAR, KAKASHI HATAKE?"

Kakashi swallowed almost convulsively and said in a tone that very clearly conveyed an over-done sincerity, "Yes, ma'am. Won't ever happen again, ma'am. Sorry for not realizing."

She stared at him appraisingly for a moment, Kakashi feeling suddenly very naked as she scanned his singularly visible eye and body language with a practiced scrutiny to look for even the tiniest hint of a lie or attitude. He was careful to keep his body and eye relaxed so that they would hold up to her intense test, despite his undeniable worry that she'd find something that pissed her off even just slightly. She was good at finding those sorts of things, Kakashi had unfortunately found out.

This time, though, Kakashi was lucky to pass her exam and she ended up sighing dramatically and stalking off into the kitchen to go and check up on where she knew Naruto would be eating his breakfast by now, throwing her hands up in the air in a gesture of utter frustration as she went. Well, at least she wasn't jabbing him in the chest anymore.

Kakashi relaxed his tense posture and let out a slow breath when he realized he had avoided the crazy storm that was a mad Tsunade. Having sufficiently calmed enough for now, he followed the path of the out-of-control woman and entered the kitchen to see said woman leaning against the counter watching Naruto eat, an unreadable but hard look on her face as she stared. Apparently, for both Kakashi and Tsunade, watching Naruto eat was somehow incredibly fascinating. Perhaps it was the way he was able to utterly destroy something that wasn't even alive in the first place, or maybe it was the fact that half of the poor thing ended up down the front of his bib in the end anyhow. Kakashi had tried to feed Naruto like he had been able to do when he was younger in the hope of avoiding the mess, but now that Naruto was one year old, he seemed to have developed an independent streak and wanted to feed himself his food all on his own. Kakashi was happy that he was building up his own initiative at such a young age and slowly learning to take care of himself too, but he really would've rathered he had started off in another more suitable area.

Kakashi shook away his thoughts on Naruto's growing personality traits and asked the still-staring-way-too-intensely Sannin, "So, did you just come here to watch him destroy his breakfast and lecture me about my people skills or was there something else you wanted?"

Tsunade almost snapped her head up and once again start in on her rant about his poor attitude, but couldn't find the passionate anger she had been able to bring up so easily before. To be honest, she had mostly freaked out on him so much earlier because she was trying to distract herself from what she had to say next. Kakashi was never going to change and she'd mostly given up on her once constant lectures about his behavior once she had come to that realization. In fact, she was so sure about how well she knew him that she just **knew** he was gonna hate what she had to now discuss with him.

"It's time, kid. The Hokage has made his orders very clear that you are to start in on small missions to lead up to your full reinstatement as an active shinobi."

Kakashi paused for a moment in shock, having known that the time was coming but not so Goddamn **soon**. His gaze instantly switched to watch Naruto instead of the grim Sannin and the cold steel instantly took on a shade of worry. Sure, he wanted to be reinstated as an active shinobi again more than anything, but that meant leaving Naruto behind for maybe even days at a time and he felt decidedly uncomfortable about that. Who knew what awful things could happen to him while he wasn't there to watch over him? He was so used to always being there for him that he couldn't imagine having to leave him for long periods of time without his protection. It twisted his gut into a tight knot and made him sort of feel like hacking up his cereal from earlier this morning.

When Tsuande noticed that Kakashi had started a slow spiral into a decent lot of panic regarding Naruto's safety, she said in an offended tone, "Cut it out, kid! You know I'll look after him just fine. In fact, probably even a heck of a lot better than you do. I've been nothing but trustworthy every time you've left him in my care and I seriously hope you aren't going to lose faith in one of the Leaf's very own Sannin in protecting a year-old child!"

Kakashi was too absorbed in his thoughts of Naruto to properly react to her harshness and instead returned in a quiet voice, "I know that you are more than capable of looking after him and, in fact, you are right in the idea that you probably are more on-the-ball of taking care of him than I will ever be. But you have to understand that my mission from my late sensei and Hokage was to protect this child at all costs and I can't help but be concerned that something will happen that I should've been there to protect him from. I know you said we'd help him on his path together, but it was still a mission given to me first and foremost and therefore it is my duty to shoulder most of the burden. **I **am the one to carry most of the blame here if something goes wrong and we both know it."

Damn, no wonder the kid was such a good soldier. He was so willing to shoulder the most unbearable burdens if it meant completing 'the mission' as Kakashi had apparently taken to dubbing his current situation. She ignored her rising frustration at a baby being referred to as a mission by his most-trusted guardian constantly and instead zeroed in on Kakashi's more important concerns at this time.

"I know I know," she said with a slight shoulder slump, "but you just have to trust me on this. I know Naruto's safety is a top priority but he'll be just fine. You really have nothing to worry about, I promise. You have my word he'll be in perfect condition when you come back."

Kakashi allowed his gaze to drift from Naruto and his destroyed banana to Tsunade's golden eyes that had also turned from the stomach-churning sight to stare into his own with an unwavering determination. Her sincerity and vow had been enough to calm his worries for now and he allowed himself to untense muscle by muscle until his whirring mind calmed down along with the rest of his self.

"I know, Tsunade. I'm sorry. I am shinobi and it is very unprofessional of me to put my missions below my current duty with Naruto. What is the mission I've been asked to do?"

Tsunade almost spoke out about her disapproval about how he had worded his apology, but decided that she really did have to get on with it and started to tell him exactly what it was he had been requested to do for his mission.

It was a pretty simple mission and fortunately, for both Kakashi and Naruto, would only take two days or so at the most. Tsunade had said that it was below his usual rank because Sarutobi was wary of starting him off on anything too difficult after a yearlong break, no matter how good condition he kept himself in. He was also trying to be understanding of the fact that Kakashi had a kid to raise and wanted to keep it to a mission that was of a suitable time-frame.

Apparently, someone from a near-by village had reported that a group of unruly bandits had crashed into his family's home late one evening and proceeded to steal a very important scroll that contained a forbidden jutsu that had been passed down to him to protect by his ancestors. He would've been able to have fought them and perhaps have reclaimed the scroll too (being a chunin/jounin-level ninja himself) if it hadn't been for the fact that one of the arseholes had held his six-year-old daughter at knifepoint when he had been momentarily caught off-guard. Therefore, he had had no choice but to let them escape with the scroll.

Once his comrades had escaped safely with the scroll, the man that was threatening the life of the young girl had fortunately let her go and swiftly retreated. By the time the man had secured his family's safety and set out to track the bandits, though, he was already far too late and their trace was long gone. He then had contacted the Leaf for support, knowing that it was vital for whatever jutsu the scroll possessed to not stay in their dangerous and greedy hands any longer.

Another team of tracking shinobi had already been dispatched to locate their whereabouts and they had swiftly discovered them about a day and half's journey from the border of Fire Country. Kakashi and his team were to take up the trail and reclaim the stolen jutsu by any means necessary. If they somehow managed to survive the assault, the offenders were to be caught and brought directly to the Hokage's office immediately to await their delivered punishment. It was clean and it was simple, just the way Kakashi liked it.

"And just who am I bringing with me this time 'round?" Kakashi asked in a neutral voice, speaking for the first time since Tsunade had delivered the Hokage's orders.

She firmly locked gazes with him and said patiently, "Two chunin. Their names escape me for the moment but I've heard that they are of considerable skill and are ready for this mission despite being ranked beneath you and only passing the exam two months or so ago."

Kakashi gave her a hard and cold stare when he said in mild disgust, "Honestly, I've been put with two ninja whom have barely come out of being **genin**? What sort of ridiculous match-up is that? Does the Hokage not understand how important it is keep a firm hold of any and all forbidden jutsu?"

Tsunade gave him an even icier stare when she said in retaliation, "Are you really going to question the wisdom and orders of your own Hokage? Carefuly now kid or some might start calling you out for treason and we both know that some people take that very seriously in shinobi circles."

Kakashi was instantly contrite for his unusually immature attitude and voiced a quiet apology as he went ahead and packed the few supplies he would need for the mission, knowing that he really should start to get ready before the bandits left the vicinity of Fire Country. He tried not to admit to himself that perhaps he was also trying to get away from the crazy look in Tsunade's eyes re-emerging once more.

Once he had completed the small task, he re-entered the kitchen to say a farewell to both Naruto and Tsunade before he set off for his first proper mission in a full year. It felt a bit surreal for him, but the routine was rapidly and steadily coming back to him.

He had planned to just say a quick 'see you later' or something to the two and then set off on his journey, but that notion had been quickly obliterated when he noticed Naruto had finished his 'breakfast' and was instead now sitting in Tsunade's lap in one of the other chairs (yes, he had **finally **gotten over being held by others, to Kakashi's great relief) and had turned his gaze to lock with Kakashi's as he re-entered the room he was currently residing in.

It once again hit Kakashi that he would be leaving Naruto for the first time for more than just an hour or so. He was just so young and so vulnerable and it made his head spin thinking of all of the dangers he himself wouldn't be able to protect him from while he was absent. Thank God he had Tsunade to care for him or he would've lost his mind by now. Knowing that she was even stronger than he was definitely gave him hope that Naruto would be alright when he returned. He'd just have to make sure he got this mission does as soon as was humanly possible.

He walked towards Naruto still sitting calmly in Tsunade's lap and bent down slightly, not being able to break eye contact the whole time for a moment even if he wanted to.

"Ah, well, I guess this is it, Naruto; time for me to go. I promise I'll be back soon, alright?" His tone and posture were obviously very awkward, despite the fact that he knew that Naruto didn't even understand what the hell he had just said. Kakashi wasn't used to comforting others and even though he had had to do so with Naruto before, this time it just felt different somehow.

Naruto stared into his eye very solemnly for a moment, as if he himself could also feel the weight of the situation at hand, and then very suddenly stretched forward his arm, making a grabby motion with his pudgy little hand.

Kakashi instantly obliged to Naruto's unspoken request and put his hand forward too, the boy instantly latching on to his pointer finger in a firm grip. In the last month or so, Naruto had come to grabbing out for Kakashi's hand whenever he felt nervous and the habit had just kind of stuck. Tsunade had said that babies received more comfort through skin-to-skin contact, something about warmth or whatever (Kakashi wasn't really listening at the time, as usual) and so Kakashi had let Naruto grab onto one of his fingers if he ever felt he needed to. Getting used to the skin-to-skin contact had definitely taken some time, but, to Kakashi by now, it was practically reflex. He barely even thought about the uncomfortableness of the situation at all now.

Tsunade knew that time was of the essence and despite the touching union between the two, Kakashi really did have to get going. If she didn't pull him out of his trance herself, she knew he probably wouldn't leave for at least another five minutes or so and this mission really had to get up and running as soon as possible.

"Go, kid," she said in an understanding tone, "it really is time you left. You've had your good-byes and he'll just be fine. I swore that to you and we both know I never go back on my word."

Kakashi sighed slightly and slowly retracted his finger once more, his throat clenching minutely when Naruto tried to hold on even tighter as he did so. Tsunade was right; it was time.

Before he could second-guess himself, he stalked stiffly over to his window, a quiet good-bye aimed at Tsunade as he went, and leaped cleanly through the opening, landing as stealthily as a cat on the street below. As he made his way quickly and silently to the meeting place for him and his team, he tried to banish any and all thoughts of Naruto from his head.

He ignored the fact that he was failing miserably.

-Break-

"How much further?"

"They should be only about twenty or so metres ahead of us, Captain."

The three shinobi continued leaping through the trees until they came to the edge of a clearing, Kakashi (captain of the team, being the highest-ranked and all) instantly bringing up his hand in a signal for all of them to stop all movement immediately.

The two other chunin with him (that he still for the life of him didn't know the names of) halted instantly and balanced expertly on their own branches, still hidden from view of the clearing, and awaited their captain's orders for what they should do next.

Kakashi, giving them a mildly impressed look as he realized that they probably were as skilled as Tsunade said they would be, said to them in a voice so quiet they probably had to struggle to hear him from their perches, "Looks like our info was correct; four bandits that had set up camp in a clearing close to the border of Fire Country. We're lucky we caught them now because they appear to be packing up to head out. Probably stayed here this long because they didn't think they'd be caught so close to the border."

"Cocky bastards," one of the unnamed chunin said to himself in a hoarse whisper.

The other looked at Kakashi, obviously worried about his reaction to his buddy's rookie outburst, and tried to distract his captain from his friend's idiocy by saying, "So, captain, what do we do next? Ambush?"

Kakashi decided to ignore the first chunin's comment about his thoughts on the bandits and instead turned to answer the second one questioning their next move, "Yes, I believe that'd be best for now. We'll let 'em pack up and move out of the clearing to give them time to think that they're going to get away with the scroll. We'll edge around to the other side where they're most likely to exit through and set up some traps to separate them a ways into the surrounding forest. Once they're separated, I'll take two of them and each of you will take one of the others. I'll definitely take the one that looks like he's in charge because he'll probably be the hardest and the one carrying the jutsu. Any questions?"

Both of them shook their heads in the negative and Kakashi gave them a firm nod to silently announce to them that they should get moving then, all of them dashing off to get around to the correct part of the forest and set up the necessary traps.

They ended up setting up a completely undetectable trip-wire that would cause a series of smoke bombs to be set off. Once they were caught blind in the trap, Kakashi and the two others would throw kunai at them through the smoke and use that as a distraction to get their individual targets alone and separated from the rest of the group. They could all tell just by looking at them and getting a feel for their chakra that they were probably all of chunin-level, the leader probably leaning towards being more of jounin-level. The fights might be a bit challenging, but the three of them were more than confident that they could handle it quickly and efficiently and still retrieve the forbidden jutsu scroll.

Thankfully, not long after the trap was set up, the bandits had packed up all of their belongings and advanced towards the part of the clearing that Kakashi had predicted they would come through. Kakashi gave a quick flick of his wrist and they all followed his advice and darted into the canopy of trees above where the trap was set up, being careful to disguise their chakra as best as possible so as not to give their position away unnecessarily.

The bastards never saw it coming. They fell right into the trap without a hitch and the team quickly got to work, securing their individual targets away from the rest with the efficient use of their kunai. They shouted in panic for their comrades, but it really was no use, they were already done for the moment they let their guard down.

About thirty seconds or so later, Kakashi had decided that his targets were far enough away from the others' and proceeded to mercilessly launch his assault. He launched a series of ninjutsu at the two, being sure to pay most of his attention to the leader. They were still very much caught off-guard and were hit pretty damn hard by his techniques.

Unfortunately, though, the bandits' training eventually kicked in sharply and without a word they returned the assault with a brutal force of their own. Kakashi was thankful at that moment that he was so skilled or he really would've been toast. They were a little sloppy with their ninjutsu, but they worked effortlessly in tandem together when it came down to taijutsu. Kakashi thought idly to himself that Gai would've loved to have battled it out with them himself. He loved testing out his skill in that area whenever possible, as was pretty damn obvious by now.

The battle went on for a few more minutes before things actually started to get interesting. No words had been exchanged between the enemies, just a series of endless blows. Apparently, they weren't the chitchat type either and that was just fine by Kakashi. By now, Kakashi had been forced to reveal his Sharingan eye to keep up with their cohesive assault and was currently blocking a series of kunai aimed at him by the bandit that wasn't the leader. Being so focused on his task, he didn't notice that the leader himself had used the distraction to come up behind him and launch his own attack until he felt something wrap around his waist and bind his arms to his sides, coiling tightly like a deadly snake.

He instantly snapped his head to stare down at whatever the hell it was, noticing that a thick rope of an unusual purple chakra was squeezing his waist and forearms rather uncomfortably. He mentally berated himself for being so careless and turned towards where the rope lead back to.

His stomach almost dropped right through the floor when he saw that the rope eventually lead right back to a scroll that was spread out between the leader's hands. He had no doubt in his mind that the jutsu currently being used against him in the present moment was none other than the unknown forbidden jutsu they had been sent to retrieve.

Well, fuck.

"I see you know what this is then. Means I was right for thinking that you were sent here to retrieve this little beauty. What a shame that it will just end up being the death of you, Kakashi of the Sharingan," the leader, having spoken for the first time in the battle, said with a mocking sneer.

Kakashi gave a confused look as he watched the other bandit come around to join his leader, replying with, "What do you mean, the death of me?" He gave no mention to the fact that the guy already knew his name without an introduction. He'd just kinda gotten used to people knowing who he was by now. It was simply a common occurrence for the teen these days.

The other bandit gave a smooth chuckle as he said with undeniable malice, "That chakra rope doesn't just keep you still, you know. It also drains your chakra at a rather rapid rate until you eventually die from forced chakra exhaustion. You would know better than anyone, Hatake, that a ninja with no chakra is a dead ninja. Plain and simple."

Yeah, well, plain and simple what was Kakashi had thought this mission was going to before he had wound up in this unfortunate situation…so much for a clean mission.

He gave both of the bandits an equally scathing stare as he tried to block out their growing mocking of him and instead tried to figure out just what the fuck he was supposed to do now. Not having known the contents of the scroll (apparently, the guy who was meant to be protecting it had been reluctant to divulge such sensitive information), he hadn't been able to anticipate a strategy in advance in case it was used against him. Now, that miscalculation had ended up with him dying a slow death before a bunch of good-for-nothing criminals. Super.

He tried reaching for his tools, but his hands were still bound too far away from his weapons pouch to do so. He tried creating some seals, but still faced the issue with his hands from before. He tried using his own chakra to somehow force it from his body and cancel out the jutsu, but that seemed to only speed up the draining process and so he seized that process rapidly. He even tried using his Sharingan to force the two before him into a genjutsu, but they were careful to avoid meeting his stare for even the slightest of moments. He cursed himself for not learning to use his Sharingan without eye contact sooner.

It only took about a minute or so more of useless, half-formed plans of escape before Kakashi seriously started to feel the effects of the jutsu. His body was already becoming much, much weaker and he was finding it harder and harder to stand on legs that felt like they were made purely of wobbly jelly. Another minute went by and he really had to stop himself from panicking when he felt his head spin and fell to his knees from the endless vertigo. He could no longer understand half the words that the bandits were saying as it was using all of his will power just to keep kneeling on the unforgiving forest floor. The bandits simply just stood there and had a right old chat with each other about their victory, as if a man wasn't dying by their hand right before their very eyes.

By now, Kakashi's vision was starting to blacken slowly at the edges and he fought against it with everything he had, trying his best to keep his eyelids open even though they felt like they were made of heavy metal shades.

It was then that the thought occurred to him.

Why was he fighting so hard in the first place? If he died, would that not be, in some form, a blessing in disguise? The weightlessness he was starting to feel freed his mind from his grief he never managed to be cured of even in the midst of battle and from the constant reminder that his life was worth nothing because he no longer had the people he had loved like family by his side, a constant support through the hardest of times. He had lost everything and he had no one. All that was left for him in this life was an open road full of endless and crushing loneliness. Why even bother to fight back if there was nothing he had left to live for anyhow and if he had no current means of escape? He may as well just let go and finally rest in peace, for once in his miserable damn life.

He could almost picture it now: no more irrational anger at himself and his surrogate family, no more pain of being so Goddam alone, no more having to get up in the middle of the night to the sound of endless wails, no more having to watch bananas squashed into an indistinguishable mess, no more having to worry about whether or not he'd child-proofed all of the corners of the counter in the kitchen, no more-

Wait, what the fuck?! Where the hell had those last ones on his list come from? Why the fuck was he just about to think about the fact that'd he'd no longer have to change dirty diapers?

And then the dawning realization fell onto Kakashi like a ton of endless bricks:

**Naruto.**

And then the images came, a stream of them that were completely unstoppable and absolutely endless:

Carrying Naruto through the forest after he'd watched his sensei die.

Staring into his eyes constantly every day and feeling their calming blue wash away some of the grief for just the smallest of moments.

Softening the slightest bit when Naruto would giggle at something that wasn't even really all that funny in the first place.

Shushing him and hugging him tight when he would become upset.

Throwing up slightly in his mouth when Naruto would destroy his food to the best of his ability.

Feeling absolutely mortified when Naruto refused to wear anything other than tiny bright orange jumpsuits and then having to walk around with the baby in public.

Admonishing his friends when they were too loud with Naruto.

Laughing slightly when Asuma was holding Naruto and he suddenly puked all down the front of his jounin vest.

Berating himself endlessly for taking his anger out on Naruto once again.

Feeling his chest tighten uncontrollably when he worried himself sick about Naruto running into the coffee table as he crawled around the living room.

And, finally, Naruto, only a day or so before, holding on to his finger as tight as he could and pleading with his eyes with barely-restrained begging for him to come back, for his guardian he had become so attached to not leave him; to please, just never let him go. **Ever.**

If Kakashi could punch himself in the face right now, he would, without any hesitation on his part. He would kick himself in the balls as hard as he could and he would bash his own head in until his face was an unrecognizable mess because how the **fuck **could he possibly **ever **consider taking the easy way out of his life and leaving Naruto behind? He would be repeating the same mistake his father had made and he had absolutely **sworn **to himself that he would **never **follow those damned footprints. His life had been destined to become an endless disaster the moment his father had decided to take his own life and leave him all alone when he was just a kid. To think that Kakashi was about to **fail **his own **sensei **and **Hokage **without even trying to fight back and leaving Naruto to experience an exact copy of his awful life so far made himself feel like a real-life monster, even worse than the Nine-Tails Naruto carried inside of him. Come to that thought, how could he also have left the baby to deal with being a jinchuriki without offering any of his own support whatsoever? Sure, the kid would have Tsunade whenever he needed her, but Naruto needed Kakashi too, probably even more than the Sannin herself.

Or, maybe, it was **Kakashi **that needed **Naruto.** Maybe, being forced into this mission didn't just mean that Naruto had a chance at having a decent life. Maybe, it also meant that Kakashi now had a valid reason to keep on fighting to **live. **Finally realizing just how much Naruto had bonded with him and therefore just how much he needed Kakashi finally made him see that maybe, he hadn't lost all hope in having a good future. Despite what happened in the past, maybe he could find some sort of happiness in taking care of Naruto, no matter how small that nugget of joy may be. Maybe, he could finally find another person precious enough to hold onto for dear life and help him feel **alive **again. He had said six month ago to himself that he couldn't help but believe in the boy, so he'd trust him with helping this tired and worn teenager who had lost all faith in life find a away for him to **feel **something worth fighting for again.

Latching onto this growing realization spreading a golden warmth through his body, he forced himself to stand straight and tall on his knees and fight against his growing tunnel vision with everything he had. He wouldn't give up on Naruto; **never again.**

With everything he had, he forced his senses to open up to his surroundings once more, his hearing tuning in faster than the others; probably because it was one of his strongest in battle.

Ending up hearing nothing but the useless babble of the bandits and some scurrying in the surrounding forest here and there, he sighed to himself in frustration and instead focused on using his eyes, one of his absolute best assets, considering he had the Sharingan in his possession.

He started off by looking at his surroundings, which were…trees, trees and more trees. Wow, that was gonna be **really **useful.

Gritting his teeth to stop his anger from taking control, he instead focused on the bandits before him. He took in the constant motion of their mouths, the grubby smiles on their faces, the way the bandit that was not the leader gestured wildly as he talked to his leader, the way the leader swayed slightly as he shook his head in agitation at his subordinate, the way the sweat was rolling steadily down his sagging shoulders and disappearing into the dirty neckline of his torn shirt-

Wait wait wait; hold the phone and back up! Why the hell was the leader looking like he was in such bad shape all of a sudden? Sure, their battle had been intense, but he certainly hadn't looked anything like **that **before; that, Kakashi was absolutely sure of.

Using what little power of the Sharingan he was capable of using at the moment, he allowed himself to have a deeper look into the man's chakra network, hoping that maybe that would give him some clues.

Both of his eyes widened considerably in shock when he noticed that the leader's chakra network was unstable; **very **unstable. In fact, Kakashi was surprised the guy was still standing; apparently, the guy was just as much of a stubborn bastard as Kakashi was.

Smirking ruefully to himself as the puzzle pieces of the situation slowly clicked in his head, he focused on the task he had set for himself based on his assumptions. He just hoped the damn thing worked, or he was **seriously **out of ideas and therefore **seriously **screwed.

He used all of the concentration and will power he had left to focus all of the chakra he had left (which was glaringly minimal) into the pit of his stomach. Once that was done, he took a good portion of it and surged it into the chakra rope still coiled tightly around him, making sure to keep some within his body so he wouldn't be putting his life in any more danger than it was already in.

He almost fell flat on his face when all of that chakra was drained so suddenly from his weary body, but he never lost his absolute determination to keep upright and to keep on fighting. He had sworn to himself by now that he'd never give up so easily ever again. He had been attacked by a moment of weakness and he'd never let himself fall to such lows for the rest of his life; he was gonna make damn sure of that.

The results were almost instantaneous. The leader, still holding the scroll spread wide open, fell to his knees in a mirror copy of Kakashi and cried out in pain, proving Kakashi's theory he had formed to, thankfully, be right on the head of the nail, so to speak.

When Kakashi had noticed the inconsistencies in the bandit's network, it hadn't taken his sharp mind long to come to the conclusion that the guy was using everything he had in him to keep the jutsu in control and to make sure it was only pulling out as much chakra as he could handle at a time. Hoping he was correct, Kakashi had taken a huge risk and pushed a large amount of chakra from his body in the hopes that it would be too much for the leader to handle and he would have to cancel the jutsu to save his own miserable skin.

As there always was with every jutsu, there was a loophole; Kakashi had just been the luckiest damn bastard alive to have brought up the will to keep on fighting and figured out the secret behind the jutsu just in time. The bandits had made a big mistake thinking that'd he really give up so easy and now Kakashi was gonna make sure that they more than paid the price for their rookie oversight.

"You bloody idiot! Break the damn jutsu! Do you wanna get yourself fried?!" the other bandit asked in a panic, his gaze switching rapidly between the scroll and his leader as if he was honestly considering just snatching the damn thing from his hands already.

The leader valiantly tried to hold on, he really did (Kakashi couldn't help but be mildly impressed by that one), but eventually the overpowering stream of chakra from the teen was too much and he released the jutsu with the last of his strength to save his own life, crashing sideways into his teammate as he lost consciousness.

He had done it; he'd really found something to hold onto and fought back and now he was alive because of it. He couldn't believe that being forced to care for a mere baby had given him the will to survive, but imagining in his mind's eye Minato and Kushina's proud smiles at his feat and for continuing to support their son brought a sense of pride and accomplishment that he hadn't been able to feel for a very long time. He had forgotten how good something like that felt.

When he felt his teammates' chakra closing in on the scene, ready to come and support their captain after finishing up their own battles, he allowed himself to be consumed by the darkness that was taking over his vision like a spider web across the visible landscape.

This time, though, he had every intention of coming back to the light. He would wake up and he would continue living. He would be there to support Naruto, just like he had promised because, just like Tsunade, he never went back on his word. That was just the way of a ninja these days, he supposed.

When his teammates found him and after they had quickly taken down the bandit trying to escape with his half-dead leader in tow, he had already fallen unconscious amongst the grass and fallen leaves of the scene of the battle. After checking for his still-beating pulse and securing the stolen jutsu, one of them threw him over their shoulder and they headed back on home, leaving a chakra sticker so that another team could find the place and clean up the mess.

-Break-

When Kakashi finally came to, he was in a stark white hospital room, one of his least favourite places to be. It took a moment for him to remember what had happened, but once he did, a soft look crossed his eye that was very rare for the Copy-Cat Ninja.

The moment didn't last for very long, unfortunately, because before he knew it, the fact that he didn't know the outcome of the mission at all also came back to him and he sat bolt-upright in bed, a panicked look crossing his once peaceful expression. The frantic look in his eye conveyed that despite being in a hospital, he was still recovering from the itch of a recent battle and that, despite being nowhere near the scene of the mission anymore, he was still just as ready to jump right back in and save the day if need be.

He was just a little out of it, to say the least.

Unfortunately, Kakashi still hadn't recovered all that much from his exhaustion and he felt a heady sense of vertigo overtake his senses and his head slumped dizzily to his chest against his will. Not to self: no sudden movements after almost dying.

"Hey hey! Easy there! Just sit back down, Kakashi! You've got major chakra exhaustion, so I suggest you keep all movements to a minimum," a worried but stern voice said almost directly to his right.

He snapped his head instantly to the voice, rather surprised that he hadn't noticed another chakra in the room as soon as he woke up. Really, though, he shouldn't feel all that surprised at all since he had been so heavily damaged in battle so recently. It was only natural to be a little off your game after an incident like that.

He took, who he had quickly identified to be Tsunade's, advice once he had calmed down and laid back into the comfortable hospital bed, asking hoarsely if she knew what had happened after he had blacked out during the mission.

Her eyes instantly assumed a dangerous glare and Kakashi would've winced if his head wasn't already pounding uncontrollably when she whisper-shouted at him, "Honestly, Kakashi?! You just wake up from almost **dying **from one of the worst cases of chakra exhaustion I have ever seen and that's what you're so concerned about?! Just what the hell is your problem?!"

Kakashi was stunned for a moment in the face of her brutal on-slaught, trying to figure out exactly what it was he had done wrong so soon. After taking a more thorough look at her facial expression, though, he finally realized why she was being so vicious:

She was **worried **about him.

That may seem like a stupid thing to be so surprised about, but Kakashi honestly couldn't remember the last time he had had someone to worry so much about his well being. He almost smiled when he could finally take in the tightness around her eyes and the stiffness in her posture for the signs of distress for his safety that they were. It had been such a long time since someone had cared about him so much and he realized, for the first time in the year that he had been forced to spend so much time with her, that he was grateful to have a figure like Tsunade watching out for him and Naruto. It was unusually comforting and reassuring.

Speaking of Naruto…

"Where's Naruto?"

A vein looked like it was about to spectacularly burst forth from her head when she once again whisper-shouted at him, "You fool! Are you ever going to put your health before everything else?! Kami, you are so thick sometimes! Do you promise to take your situation more seriously if I tell you everything that you seem to think is so much more damn important right now?!"

Kakashi nodded slightly with an understanding look in his eye when he replied with a quiet, "Yes, I promise. I'm sorry I made you worry; it was never my intention."

Tsunade looked at him with slight shock before she, too, relaxed minutely and said in a much calmer tone, "Damn, too sharp for your own good, kid. I'm sorry I got mad. I was just, as you said, worried about you. To answer your concerns: yes, the mission went smoothly. The bandits have been apprehended and the jutsu is once again with its rightful owner. The leader is in ICU from severe damage to his chakra network, but he should be awake enough for a nice interrogation from Ibiki soon. Your teammates have a few minor injuries but are otherwise unharmed. Despite the…ah…**complications**…you did good kid. Nice job on your first time back for a while." She finished her report with a small smile and a soft look in her eyes at the end.

Kakashi's head relaxed more into the soft, white pillows beneath it once he was assured that all was well mission-wise. He just had one more concern left now. "Where's Naruto?" he repeated.

Tsunade chuckled to herself when she saw how cool and calm he was trying to act despite the obvious gleam of undeniable worry in his eye looking straight back into the gold of her own. She took pity on him quickly and gestured towards the chair beside his head with a small flick of her slim wrist.

Kakashi's visible eye instantly snapped towards where she had pointed out, his whole body practically **exuding **utter relief when he took in the closed eye-lids, the tuft of untamable blonde hair and a tiny chest rising and falling leisurely as the boy slept soundly without a care in the world. He was ok. Thank God.

"Come on, I'll help you sit up so you can hold him," Tsunade said with a tone of understanding. They both knew that it was what Kakashi wanted without him actually having to voice his request.

A few painful grunts later, Kakashi was situated somewhat-comfortably against a couple of propped-up pillows in his hospital bed and held his weak arms out shakily, eager to hold Naruto so he could be sure once and for all that the boy was safe. Somehow, his health could only be guaranteed to him if he could actually **feel **the tiny body in his arms.

Once Naruto was situated comfortably in his arms (Kakashi ignored the fact that his arms were shaking even more than before from not being quite strong enough to handle such a weight yet), he stared at the boy with an unreadable look in his eye as he remembered the thoughts running through his head earlier. Without even realizing it, the boy had saved his life. He would be eternally grateful to both the kid and his sensei for giving him this task. He almost wondered if the Fourth Hokage had known somehow what his son would do to Kakashi's head and that was part of the reason why he had been so insistent he took care of him. He let the thought slide, though, as he was more concerned with basking in the presence of a boy who had no idea just the kind of power he had over people even as a baby, particularly his constant guardian and protector.

Pulling himself from his trance, he asked Tsunade in a weighted voice, "Did anything happen while I was gone?"

Tsunade tensed slightly at the fact that the kid had once again unconsciously doubted her skill as a more than competent ninja, but calmly replied anyhow with, "Yes. No complications. Except…"

Kakashi instantly snapped his head up at her unsure tone, becoming rather upset when he noticed the guarded look on her face. She was obviously debating with herself whether or not she should tell him about something. Well, Kakashi was certainly having none of that. When it came to Naruto, she had no right do such a thing. She should really know that by now.

"Tell me," he said in a dangerous voice, unconsciously radiating a high level of killer intent that he normally was able to keep a very tight leash on even in battle; the less your enemies knew, the better, after all.

Tsunade flinched slightly at the dangerous chi, but gave no other indication at her uneasiness. She knew that Kakashi didn't actually have any intention of physically harming her; he was just worried about Naruto. She could certainly understand that.

All the same, he voice was rather sharp when she said to him, "That's enough, Kakashi. I just didn't want you to unnecessarily get worked up, that's all. There really isn't anything to worry about. I was just going to say that Naruto got pretty upset at one point. He just suddenly burst into tears. He was in the worst hysterics I have ever seen. There was absolutely no calming him down. I swear to God I was worried he would almost pass out from the stress. It was like the perceptive brat just **knew **you were in trouble. I wouldn't put it past the boy to be able to tap into such things, though, with the…well, you know…"

Oh, yes. Kakashi really did know; all too well. Tsunade had meant to say that she wouldn't put it past the boy to be naturally perceptive to certain things because he carried a very powerful being inside of him. _The perks of being a jinchuriki…_ Kakashi thought sourly to himself.

His bitterness was outweighed, though, by the realization of just what Tsunade had said. The kid had been **scared.** No, he had been terrified enough to go into **hysterics** all because he was worried that Kakashi wouldn't make it back alive.

What really killed him a little inside, though, was the fact that he almost **had. **He had been so Goddamn close to giving up on everything and leaving Naruto behind. He had been mere inches away from making the boy's worst nightmare come true, whether the kid realized that was the case or not.

The guilt and shame becoming overwhelming at being such a failure at his mission without even really trying all that much, he clutched onto Naruto so tightly that he was afraid that he would wake up the still-sleeping boy. He once again reaffirmed his vow that as long as he lived, Naruto would never be alone. He wouldn't be put through the horrors that Kakashi himself had been through when he had been abandoned so suddenly by so many. **Never.**

Tsunade couldn't help but smile to herself when she noticed Kakashi's clutching onto Naruto more tightly than she he had ever see him do before, a sense of undeniable warmth spreading over her when she once again noticed just how much Naruto had changed Kakashi without really realizing.

As she quietly left the room to give them some much needed alone time, she thought to herself with a triumphant smirk that despite Kakashi's sentiments, he was becoming just as attached to the boy as the boy had apparently become to him. It was really only a matter of time now before Kakashi couldn't hide from the truth any longer.

-Break-

It was a few more days before Kakashi was allowed to leave the hospital and finally return to his home, and he was more than glad when the time finally arrived. He hated hospitals because…well…they reminded him of things. Things he'd really rather forget.

Besides, despite Tsunade's constant reassurances that she was more than happy to continue to care for Naruto while he was still recovering, even he could tell that she wanted a break from the pressures of a baby all the same. Kakashi would've voiced how **he **would've liked to take a break too every now and then, but felt a bit guilty when each time he realized that he actually wasn't even her direct responsibility in the first place.

He couldn't help the relieved slump of his shoulders when, after he had packed up the few belongings that were with him in his tiny hospital room, Tsunade entered while dragging a slowly waddling Naruto along with her. It was like a sense of calm washed over his body every time he saw that the kid was ok when the Sannin brought the both of them along for daily visits.

He wasn't the only one that was happier, though. Despite the fact that Naruto still couldn't say anything much more than useless baby babble, he got this excited look on his chubby face and he'd try to waddle along a little faster to reach his guardian as fast as his little legs would allow. In face, the first time Naruto and Tsunade had come to visit, he had been so bloody over the moon to see Kakashi that he had overestimated the skill of his slowly developing waddle and proceeded to snatch his tiny hand from Tsunade's apparently lax grip and charged on forward to meet up with his guardian he had missed so dearly.

Unfortunately, he had been so caught up in his joy that he had gotten his underdeveloped legs twisted around each other in his haste and started an awful descent towards the hard, tiled floors of the hospital room.

Fortunately for the little buggar, Kakashi had incredible reflexes and had leapt up from his seated position on the edge of the bed and caught the boy before he broke his poor nose on the unforgiving flooring. In fact, he had been so damn fast in his task that even Tsunade was impressed with his skill despite also being incredibly worried about Naruto's well being.

Once Naruto was caught in a secure embrace, leaning up against Kakashi's chest as he did so, Kakashi had tightened his grip ever so slightly in his relief and whispered something in the boy's ear that was too low for even the Sannin's sharp hearing to catch. She could guess, though, from his tense posture, that it probably was something along the lines of 'be careful, I might not be there to catch you next time'. Well, Tsunade highly doubted that. As long as Kakashi was still breathing, there would always be someone there to catch Naruto when he fell.

Anyhow, back in the present, Tsunade had already guided Naruto over (this time **very **careful that he didn't try to break away and catch her off-guard again) and placed Naruto's tiny palm into Kakashi's waiting one. She couldn't help but notice the way that Kakashi held on to the limb even tighter than usual. Apparently, he was even more worried than she was that the boy would put himself in danger again.

Ready for a well-deserved break from babysitting for a while, she quietly excused herself and started to walk towards the open doorway of the hospital room. Before she could reach her destination, though, Kakashi called out to her to wait for a moment.

Surprised that he was actually the one telling her to stay for once, she slowly turned back to face him and did her best to give off an aura of patience and calmness. She could tell just by the tenseness in his shoulders and neck and the way his hand not occupied with Naruto's constantly clenched in on itself that whatever he had to say was something he had been working up the nerve to say for a very long time.

It was about half a minute later that Kakashi looked awkwardly to the floor and finally opened his mouth behind his mask, saying in an unusually small voice, "I know you've wanted to know what happened back there in the battle with the bandits for a long time. I was almost wondering myself what exactly it was that had gone down too. The whole ordeal just seemed so…so **surreal. **These last few days, I've been playing over and over again in my head all of the thoughts that had gone through my mind during that time. Even now, I still don't understand exactly why everything that happened that day to me happened, but I'm grateful all the same.

You see, the others on my team don't know what happened during my battle. I'm glad you didn't badger me about it like many others would've, despite obviously being curious. I won't go into specifics, but basically, for a moment there, I almost wouldn't have minded if I had died. (Tsunade gasped to herself silently at this particular declaration, but knew that if she interrupted him now, he'd probably never work up the nerve to continue ever again) I had been so alone for so long and I honestly thought that there was nothing left for me in this life anymore. I thought that perhaps dying would release me from my anger and my grief. Maybe, finally, I could be **free.**

But, then, I suddenly couldn't stop thinking about Naruto, I couldn't help but think about all the time we had spent together, whether good or bad, and realize that the kid had given me a purpose in life again. Just being around him and knowing how much he cares about me was enough to open up something inside of me again. I don't know what exactly it was that opened up and I don't think I'm quite ready to deal with that yet, but when the time comes, I know that it won't change the fact that Naruto saved me from myself and I will be eternally grateful to him for that."

For a moment after his speech, all was completely silent. Neither of them made a single move and Kakashi still couldn't look Tsunade in the eye, despite how much of a coward he felt like for doing so.

Another few moments later and Tsunade snapped out of her stunned daze, allowing the hope for Kakashi she had lost faith in some-what to consume her entire being as she stalked forward confidently and placed a firm hand on the top of his head.

Kakashi would've scowled something awful (not that anyone would've noticed behind his ever-present mask) at the woman when she proceeded to muss up his gravity-defying hair, but was too overwhelmed at that moment with something akin to shock. Tsunade had never showed him that much affection before, in any circumstances. He knew that she cared, a lot in fact, but it had never occurred to him just how much her affection for him extended. He felt that something that he had mentioned earlier in his speech open up even more at the realization and, strangely, he wasn't as afraid as he had expected himself to be; it was nice.

"Well well well, look who's finally starting to see the light," Tsunade loudly proclaimed just as the moment between them started to get a bit awkward and drawn-out.

Kakashi looked at her with a funny look in his eye, confused at just what exactly the Sannin was referring to.

Tsunade sighed at Kakashi's usual obliviousness when it came to his true feelings and let her hand that was still placed atop his head to fall limply to her side. She put a wide smile on her face just before she spun around and headed once again to the door of the hospital room, yelling over her shoulder smugly, "Don't worry, Kakashi! You'll understand some day!"

Kakashi looked at the empty doorway dumbly for a moment, before sighing to himself over her constant cryptic words. Some people in this world just never changed.

Realizing that the time had **finally **come for him to get out of the overly white room that smelt consistently of bleach, he made sure his hold was firm on Naruto's hand before slowly walking out of the room himself, being sure to keep a steady pace that Naruto's tiny legs could keep up with.

As he went, his gaze couldn't help but shift to the much smaller figure walking alongside his own. Naruto had a very peaceful expression on his chubby face, one that looked much more mature than Kakashi would've expected.

He almost stumbed when Naruto, probably feeling his guardian's steady gaze on him as they trudged slowly along, suddenly whipped his head up to look directly into his steely gaze.

Kakashi's eye softened slightly when he recovered from the unexpected movement and returned the penetrating stare with just as much emotion as the bright blue eyes before him. Their gazes said so much more than their words ever could as they stared at each other so deeply that it was like they were staring right through into each other's souls. Kakashi, usually a very private person, was slightly surprised that he didn't feel uncomfortable about that fact at all.

Through their eyes, they conveyed all of their fears, their hopes and their simple **connectedness **to each other in ways that no one else would ever understand.

Before Kakashi broke away from the intense switching of stares, he thought to himself, just for a split-second, that perhaps Tsunade was right about the both of them after all. Maybe, just maybe, they would be each other's saviors after all.

**A/N: And so there you have it, chapter four :) Sorry it took longer than usual but this one was definitely about twice as long as my usual ones. In fact, I was almost considering leaving it to put up on Friday or something but then I woke up with the flu this morning and ended up not going to school and so I decided I may as well use the unexpected extra time to keep up-to-date with the story. It's getting pretty obvious now that Kakashi's cracking when it comes to his resolve about seeing Naruto as nothing more than a mission. What's the most important thing to take from this chapter, though, is the fact that Kakashi is no longer so opposed to what he knows he feels. He still doesn't quite understand what's going on inside of him and he's still, as he admitted, not quite ready to figure that out just yet. For now, he just wants to explore this connection the two appear to have unconsciously formed and see where that goes. Also, I guess it's important to see that the relationship between Tsunade and Kakashi is being more cemented in this chapter too. Despite both being rather stubborn, prideful beings, they can't help but show they care every now and then and really, who can blame them? :P Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed this chappie and, as usual, spare a review if you can. And, also, if there's anything you're unsure about, don't hesitate to ask me! I'd be more than happy to answer! I've made it my mission to get back to all of my reviewers, too, since I'm so grateful that you guys care enough to comment on my story! I feel it's only fair to show my appreciation by saying something in return.**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**


	6. Chapter Five

_Just how the fuck did I get dragged into this again?_

The thought had been re-playing over and over in his head as if it was on everlasting rewind. It was a completely valid thought too. Kakashi just wasn't the kind of guy that did these sorts of things. He was more the type that laid back and enjoyed life from the sidelines with a nice book and a quiet atmosphere. Sure, his idea of the 'sidelines' meant no contact with any other living human being for as much of the day as possible and the literature that he preferred to read on most occasions was porn that tried and miserably failed to have any sort of decent plot…but it could've been worse, right?

Unfortunately for him, his 'friends' didn't share his sentiments.

He had been having a pretty average morning at first as he had no missions to attend to for a while, just the way he liked it. After all, Kakashi was nothing if not a creature of habit. He had gotten up nice and early as per usual, gotten himself ready with his usual routine, woken up Naruto and prepped him too, whipped them up a quick breakfast and had then proceeded to sit on his couch reading his infamous 'literature' while keeping a close eye on Naruto as he attempted to create the tallest tower he could with his colourful building blocks. He always failed to do so about half way through when his questionable construction would fall to the ground for the umpteenth time, but the adorable pout on his petulant features made Kakashi chuckle slightly to himself every time.

It was just after one of the many times Naruto's semi-built towers had fallen to pieces that Kakashi's day deviated from his much preferred norm.

A sharp knock on his door, followed by the distinctive voice of Anko shouting out, "Open up, ya lazy bastard!" caused him to force himself to put away his riveting story and get said lazy arse off the couch and moving towards his front door. He knew better than to pretend he wasn't home. Last time he'd done that when Anko had been on the other side, he'd thought to himself that having a warm shower would be a nice way to distract himself from her incessant knocking and hollered swearing. Let's just say, that a determined kunoichi that knows how to pick locks and an idiot shinobi who forgets to close the bathroom door while he showers is not a great combination and leave it at that, shall we?

Shuddering from such mind-scarring memories re-surfacing once more, he took one last look at Naruto's frustrated scowl aimed at his treacherous blocks and then moved on to answer his door, hoping to God that it wouldn't take long. After all, he'd been reading the best Icha Icha in the series and he was almost up to his favourite part!

Once he'd opened his door with a resigned sigh and a disinterested slouch, he was immediately bombarded by the sight of a bunch of his fellow comrades crowded in his doorway as best as possible, almost falling over each other in their attempt to all squeeze into the view of his visible eye as much as possible.

Instead of telling them to back off and piss off (as much as he'd really like to), he simply asked them in a bored tone, "Can I help you all with something, or what?"

"Aw, come on, 'Kashi! Don't be like that! You used to be so much more **welcoming **when people came to visit. Don't start disappointing me now," she leered at him, her dark eyes trailing his physique with a suggestive look written in them as plain as day.

Kakashi's eye widened in shock and he shivered almost imperceptibly, doing his best to refrain from turning around and smacking the door in her face. He was never gonna live that one down, it seemed.

Taking a few precious seconds to re-collect himself and some-what ignoring her humoured smirk, he repeated to the others crowded outside his doorway (that being: Asuma, Genma, Raido, Gai and Kurenai), "I say it again, what are you doing here. Was there some sort of meeting I'm missing or something?"

"Don't be such a spoilt-sport, Kakashi!" Asuma said with a knowing smile, "We're not here on business! We're here to get you out of the house! Kurenai's made some stuff up for a picnic and we're all going out by the river together to get some fresh air. We all decided while we were on our way out that it was about time you came out with us again too! I know you've got a kid and all, but it really shouldn't be all that much of an issue to bring him along with us now! You need a break from all this monotony you've shrouded yourself in. So, come on! What d'ya say?"

Kakashi looked from one face to another, taking into account all of their hopeful and some-what worried expressions (and Anko's still rather creepy look in her eye) and internally sighed. They were going to be so disappointed when he refused them, but he had to do it. He wasn't a 'hang out with friends and have a picnic' kinda guy. He just wasn't.

He was just about to open up his mouth and let them down as gently as he was capable of doing (which wasn't very impressive, to be honest), when he felt a searing whack to the back of his head and a dangerous voice saying directly in his right ear, "You better not be thinking of refusing them, Kakashi. They asked you nicely but, believe me, they are **not **above resorting to me if need be."

_Ah, I see. So they already anticipated I'd say no. Well, I guess they aren't jounins for nothing, after all._

Trying his best not to show his shock at being snuck up on so easily (seriously, how the hell did she **do **that?), he turned around to face the voice that had been whispering in his ear so harshly only moments before.

"Tsunade; fancy seeing you here. Sorry if I'm being presumptuous, but I don't quite remember inviting you in," he said in a mildly threatening voice of his own as he finally met her golden stare. Honestly, she really had to learn that he had a front door for a reason. She was starting becoming far too much like Gai in that area. In fact, he was quite surprised that this time, Gai had actually decided to use his front door. Maybe he'd finally knocked some sense into him after all.

Smirking to himself at the possible revelation, he missed Tsunade sneaking her deceptively small hand up to whop him on the back of the head again. Damn, he kept on forgetting that he had to keep his guard up at all times around this woman.

As he bent over and rubbed his sore head slightly, a fierce scowl planted on his unseen features, she leaned down into his personal space and whispered to him, "Stop being so Goddamn stubborn! I know you don't like this sort of thing, but do it for them, would you? They're just trying to be nice and help you out because they're worried about you. So just play along and who knows, maybe you'll even end up enjoying yourself just a little bit…"

Shit, that woman really knew how to pull at his minimal heartstrings. The perceptive woman had gotten to know him far too well over the last year and a half and by now knew just the right thing to say to get him to tag along to the most ridiculous things.

Knowing he'd lost a battle that had barely even begun, he slouched even more than usual as he got back up and turned to face the others in his doorway. Staring at their hopeful faces once more (and being secretly glad they cared for him so much despite his constant bad attitude towards them), he looked to the ground slightly, before picking his head back up to glare at them and say, "Fine; you win. We'll go."

After his reluctant announcement, they all slumped slightly in relief, every one of them glad that they didn't have to fight him on this anymore. It seemed it was a good decision on their part to bring along Tsunade for 'extra convincing'. Whether Kakashi admitted it or not, he cared about and respected her quite a bit and therefore always fell to her wishes one way or another. She was the only sort of 'parent figure' he had left and whether he realized that or not, he treasured that connection quite a bit.

"So, will you bring Naruto along with you?" Kurenai asked quietly, speaking up for the first time as she looked around the visible interior of his house in mild interest with her blood red eyes. Kakashi always thought it was such a shame she didn't speak up more. She'd often given him some really good advice on the few occasions she had said more than a few words.

"YES, SHE IS RIGHT! YOUR YOUTHFUL OFFSPRING MUST BE BROUGHT OUT WITH US ON THIS DAY! IT WOULD NOT DO TO LEAVE HIM BEHIND ON SUCH A WONDERFUL OCCASION!" Gai shouted at the top of his lungs, breaking through the few people in front of him and getting up right into Kakashi's masked face by the end. Poor Genma and Raido didn't look too happy about getting their heads knocked together in the process.

"I'm sorry, Gai, did you say something?" Kakashi asked boredly, staring at a spot in the distance just above his head. After all, if he was gonna get dragged into this ridiculous affair, he felt he was entitled to some below-the-belt comments; just a little bit…

Ignoring Gai's rant about his 'hip and cool attitude' or whatever, he turned around to face just to Tsunade's left (who was still standing in her spot from before, sporting a rather triumphant and smug expression) and called casually, "Hey, Pup! Come on out! We're going to a picnic with these idiots for a bit!"

Ignoring Genma's and Raido's grumblings about being called idiots just for wanting to get him out of the house for something other than missions, the others instead all gave Kakashi a funny look as he stood patiently waiting for Naruto to get up from his blocks in the living room and make his way over.

"Er…Kakashi?" asked Asuma uncertainly as, after another couple of seconds, Kakashi still failed to turn around and pay any attention to them as he waited for Naruto to maneuver his way to his guardian's voice.

Kakashi hummed in reply as he looked at them from the corner of his eye, still failing to turn around to face them properly.

"Why are y-"

"Why the hell did you just call your kid a 'Pup'? Last time I checked, he's not one of ya frigging dogs, 'Kashi!" Anko interrupted a now peeved Asuma, apparently far too shocked herself to wait for Asuma to fumble his way around the question they all were dying to ask themselves. Never in their lives had they ever heard Kakashi give a nickname to anyone, let alone one as ridiculous as 'Pup'.

Realizing that this was the first time he had said Naruto's recent nickname in front of them, he sighed to himself slightly while ignoring Tsunade's amused grin and saying reluctantly in return, "Blame it on Pakkun. I summoned him for Naruto one time because he was getting bored and I didn't know what else to do to entertain him while I finished my report. He was a little mad I hadn't introduced them to each other for so long, but after a while they got on like two peas in a pod. He mucked around with him for about two or three hours after that and he kept on calling him 'Pup' the whole time. It just sorta got into my head after a while and stuck. Ever since, he's just always been 'Pup'."

Before the others had time to do anything other than give him utterly dumbfounded expressions, Naruto finally came waddling into view, carrying his fox plushy he still hadn't gotten rid of as he, much more coordinately than six months ago, toddled on up to his 'father' and grabbed on to his pant leg tightly. He gave the strangers in his doorway a rather confused but incredibly adorable pout as he looked them over suspiciously.

After a few moments of silence, a herd of bodies crashed through the doorway and rushed over to Naruto, cooing over him as if he was the best thing since sliced bread. Kakashi tried to get out of the way of their mad stampede, but Naruto just clutched onto his leg even tighter and giggled happily at all of the attention he was receiving, by this age already over the endless noise of their commotion that followed them wherever they went. Apparently, the boy was adamant that his guardian stay and enjoy the 'fun' with him.

Putting his face in his palm in defeat, he allowed himself to be squished very uncomfortably as everyone fawned over Naruto; asking him questions he still wasn't able to answer (it was rather unusual he still couldn't say one proper word, according to Tsunade, which worried Kakashi slightly) and telling him over and over again just how Goddamn cute he was.

Genma even had the guts at one point to announce in his usual drawl to the group, "I still don't see how someone so cute and nice could be Kakashi's kid. Just doesn't add up in my book. I was sure he'd turn out to be as cold and lazy as his father…"

Tsunade couldn't help but snort at that and at Kakashi's dirty look aimed directly at the back of Genma's head as she ruefully announced in return, "The wonders of this world never seize, apparently."

Kakashi mumbled to himself about what a lot of useless idiots they were again and finally managed to push them all back out of his personal space as he reluctantly got Naruto and himself ready to go out for a picnic by the stream out in the near-by woods.

And so now here the lot of them were, having a right old picnic out in the forest surrounding the village, sitting some what peacefully along the bubbling stream with the warm sunshine shining down upon their forms, bathing the trees and flowers circling their chosen area in a peaceful golden light and reflecting off of the water in blinding beams.

Kakashi, not feeling particularly sociable as usual, was resting with his back against a near-by oak, dozing slightly in the face of such comforting warmth coming off of the sun in waves. It wasn't common that he had time to relax so peacefully, what with balancing his mission and Naruto, and so he took the time to enjoy such luxuries while he could. Asuma and Kurenai were playing with Naruto on the side of the stream that Kakashi was on, helping him pick a big bunch of pretty purple and white flowers that had apparently instantly caught his undivided attention ever since they had arrived. Kakashi heavily suspected that Asuma was only doing so to impress Kurenai, whom he had an eternal crush on, but he was pleased that he was watching over the boy while his guardian had a well-deserved rest nonetheless. The others were all on the other side of the stream, failing miserably at catching fish, chatting loudly and doing God knows what else to entertain themselves while there were here.

Last by not least, Tsunade was sitting a comfortable distance from Kakashi as she laid back on her palms and stared up thoughtfully at the endless sky, chatting quietly to him on occasion. She had insisted she sit by him while he was here, refusing to allow him to be **that **antisocial when everyone had made such a big effort to come along and try and have a good time and unwind a bit.

"I'm glad, you know," she said suddenly to him after a small lull had occurred in their mostly one-sided conversation, "that he turned out to be such a good kid. He's really growing up to be such a happy and healthy boy. He's even able to make the people around him happy. He just has some kind of aura that makes it impossible for you to feel any other way when you're around him. He's really gonna be something special someday, I can already see it now. He's even able to get through to you, one of the most ridiculously unapproachable people I know and he's only just becoming a toddler!"

Kakashi tensed rather obviously at that last statement, not quite sure how to deal with such a remark. Sure, he'd tried harder to be more open towards the relationship between him and Naruto for quite some time now, but he still just couldn't find a way to make it to that last step. Perhaps it was the fact that that last step lead to a big unknown; an unknown that Kakashi wasn't sure he was ready to take a step into so blindly. He wasn't one to just have faith that everything would be ok and jump right in, despite having no idea what waited on the other side. Until he could identify just what the final ultimatum would be in their relationship, he wasn't going to take that leap of faith. He'd been so disappointed when he'd done so with others because in the end, he'd just end up grieving or betrayed. He wasn't going to make the same mistake twice, especially not with Naruto. He couldn't afford to make **any** mistakes whatsoever when it came to that boy.

Tsunade sighed dramatically to herself in annoyance when she saw that her somewhat subtle attempt at provoking Kakashi to truly accept how he felt about Naruto had once again failed for the umpteenth time. After that fateful mission where Kakashi had told her just how much Naruto had changed him over the time they'd been forced together, she had renewed her attempts at trying to get him to just finally **see. **Even though she'd been met with silent, uncomfortable responses each time (which were much better, she admitted, than the harsh replies she had received in the past), she wasn't going to give up this time. If Naruto had already given Kakashi so much more in life than either of them had ever thought possible, then it was only right she push the teen to accept his real feelings towards the boy once and for all.

The both of them were hurriedly pulled out of their own deep thoughts when they suddenly heard a terrified shout coming from near the edge of the river.

Instantly, Kakashi and Tsunade were in battle-ready positions, expecting that the shout had been some sort of warning from one of the others that an enemy had ambushed them when they were at their most un-guarded. If Kakashi hadn't been getting geared up for a fight, he would've berated himself for being so careless. One of the most important lessons his sensei had ever taught him was that you never let your guard down, even when you feel safe. In fact, when you start to feel safe, then you should really be starting to worry because, for a shinobi, life is **never **supposed to be completely and utterly **safe**.

In what had become instinct by now, Kakashi first snapped his gaze over to Naruto, wanting to make sure he was alright before he confronted what he was sure had to be enemy shinobi. Whichever comrade had given off the unusually scared warning wouldn't have done so unless they were in very real danger.

Except, when Kakashi looked over to worriedly check on Naruto, he swore to any and all Gods above that his heart stopped beating for a split-second.

There Naruto was, sitting happily by the river staring at the life below the surface in fascination. On his right, about twenty or so metres away from him, Asuma and Kurenai were running towards him with all that their trained ninja speed could offer, frantic looks on their suddenly pale faces. Almost eight or so metres above Naruto's head, a huge boulder flying through the air was heading straight for him at incredible speed.

If you'd blinked, you would've missed it. Kurenai and Asuma, although knowing they'd never make it in time, still ran with everything they had towards the boy, knowing they'd never forgive themselves if something happened to the kid and they hadn't even **tried **to stop it.

Tsunade was attempting to create a jutsu that would stop the boulder, but even she knew, somewhere inside of her, that going through the necessary hand seals and then activating it would take precious seconds Naruto just couldn't afford to lose at the moment.

They never saw the blur of motion coming. Kakashi was so Goddamn fast that, hand to God, no one could actually see him as anything other than a split-second blur of dark blue and green. So fast, in fact, that they'd all later be second-guessing themselves if they'd actually ever seen it at all.

Kakashi was moving purely on basic instinct, his utter and devastating **need **to save the boy so overwhelming that he couldn't even **think.** His legs were pumping faster than when he'd been chased by a small army and running glaringly low on chakra and had only just made chuunin, with more agility than when he'd had to make his way down a cliff while dodging chakra-enhanced kunai and, lastly, with more blinding emotion than when he'd sprinted after his sensei when he'd been solitarily facing the Nine-Tailed Fox.

When he had finally reached Naruto in what felt like an endless wave of panic but, in reality, was only a couple of precious seconds, he latched onto the boy in the tightest hold he could manage at that moment as he pushed his legs to their absolute limit and leaped out of the path of the boulder that was practically on top of them by now, rolling on the unforgiving earth to lesson the impact of the fall and to be able to better cradle Naruto away from hitting the ground himself.

For a few moments after the boulder crashed into the earth and created an immense crater, it was dead silent; not a bird tweeted or a voice spoke. Heck, not even the wind so much as blew a few stray leaves. It was as if the whole world was frozen in the wave of all of their terror, particularly Kakashi's.

Speaking of the teen, once everyone had recovered from their momentary shock, all of their training instantly kicked into action. Every single one of them ran over to their comrade and his charge, ready to provide any necessary assistance in case worse had come to worse and the two hadn't made their way out of the path of the boulder quite like it had so Goddamn luckily appeared.

As all of them crowded around and frantically asked them if they were alright, Kakashi just held on as tightly as was humanly possible to Naruto, his mind blank with absolute horror. All he could think about over and over again was: _Oh my God, I almost lost him. Oh my God, he almost got utterly obliterated by that boulder. Oh my God he almost **died. **Naruto was almost taken from me. After everything we've been though, I almost lost him. For a split-second there, Naruto's life could've been lost to me **forever.**_

As Kakashi continued to lose himself to his overwhelming panic, Tsunade put on her 'medic-nin' persona and harshly demanded everyone to back-up. Everyone instantly fell silent and complied with out complaint, giving Tsunade the room she needed to assess the situation.

Keeping professional was incredibly hard when she noticed that, almost completely imperceptibly, Kakashi was shaking, still bowed protectively over the infant who was now wailing with the most ear-piercing cries.

Shaking off her anxiety to deal with at a more appropriate time, she knelt down beside the two and gently put her hand down between Kakashi's shoulder blades, knowing full well she shouldn't make any sudden or hard movements. She'd seen many shinobi in a state like this before and almost every one of them reacted very violently if provoked even the slightest bit.

"Is he ok, kid?" She asked gently, hoping not to startle the teen too much.

There was a long pause before Tsunade realized she wasn't getting through to him at all. He was still far too panicked to even notice she was beside him at all, probably.

Taking a big risk but knowing it had to be done so that she could check Naruto out for any severe injuries as soon as possible, she yelled harshly at him, "Kakashi! Is. He. OKAY?"

That one seemed to work wonders. Instantly, Kakashi's head snapped up and his single eye cleared, as if he had just been pulled out of a dream he hadn't realized wasn't reality. Once Tsunade's question finally got through to his muddled mind, he snapped his attention to Naruto, his hysterical cries finally registering. How he hadn't noticed them right beside his ear before made him realize just how selfishly he had reacted. Naruto should have been his absolute first priority, not his panic. He should've gotten more than used to that by now.

He proceeded to frantically check him over, only just realizing that, despite missing the boulder by mere inches, Naruto could have still gotten hurt in their rough fall. Unfortunately, Kakashi hadn't had much time to make it any more graceful or gentle.

Kakashi's visible grey eye widened almost comically when he saw a small cut steadily leaking a trickle of dark red blood on the left-hand corner of his forehead.

_Shit shit shit! What if he has a concussion or if he got brain damage and it was all my fault because I wasn't there to protect him properly? What if it's really really bad and I finally failed him and and and-_

"Kakashi!" Tsunade snapped at him when she, too, noticed the small cut and saw Kakashi go back into that awful panicked state again. This was incredibly out-of-character for Kakashi and she was really starting to worry about what he'd do next. She'd never seen him this unstable before. She hated to admit, but it almost **frightened **her.

She decided the best thing to do was trying to coax Kakashi to take Naruto to the hospital where she could give him a thorough look-over. She would've like to have done a check-up before they went there, but she had a feeling that any moves made towards Naruto now would be met with violent retaliation. Hopefully, he would calm down on the trip over and pull himself together once the setting of the hospital kicked in and he focused on seeing to Naruto's well-being.

Kakashi looked up at her so quickly she was surprised his neck didn't snap, his eye still wide with fear. She tried to look as calm and assuring as possible when she said to him, "Let's take him to the hospital so I can check that out properly, ok?" She then turned towards the others when she said, "Alright guys, pack it up! I think this party's over for today, don't you think?"

Kakashi, finally taking notice of the others still surrounding them with worried and sympathetic looks on their faces, suddenly felt a wave of rage override his initial fear and panic. They were supposed to be watching out for him, why the hell had this even happened in the first place if that was so?

"**You**," Kakashi said in the nastiest voice any of them had ever heard from him with the most dangerous glare aimed at Kurenai and Asuma than even the worst enemies they had faced, "were supposed to be watching over him. You said you had it handled. Just what the hell were you doing so far away from him when that boulder was heading straight for him?!"

Shivering from the highest killer intent they had ever known slithering down their backs like frozen ice, they both opened their mouths to stutter out a useless excuse, when Genma suddenly announced in an unusually somber tone, "Don't blame them, Kakashi. They just wanted some time alone. It was Gai and I that were the idiots. We were having a competition to see who could throw the biggest rock and I miscalculated one of my throws and it swung out of my hands before I meant to release it. It was stupid to have overestimated my strength and ability and I'm so sorry Naruto got hurt because of it. Gai and I will do whatever you wish to make up for it and we'll never forgive ourselves if something is seriously wrong with him now."

Both Gai and Genma looked incredibly contrite, almost to the point of looking pathetic. Whether they realized it or not, both of them had the most pleading expressions on their faces as they courageously stared directly into Kakashi's gaze unwaveringly, wanting more than anything to know that they hadn't completely screwed up their relationship with their comrade for the rest of their lives. To be honest, though, they couldn't really blame him if that was so. After all, they had almost gotten his only child **killed.** That's something that many would hold the strongest of grudges about until their dying days.

Kakashi felt absolutely **livid** when he heard their ridiculous explanation. They had almost gotten Naruto **flattened** only minutes beforehand because they were having a fucking **competition?!**

His killing intent went to levels so high that every single one of them took a step back simultaneously, unconsciously preparing to defend themselves for when he lashed out at them in a blind rage. His glare was so full of absolute **anger **as it stared directly into Genma's and Gai's widened eyes that it should've been able to set the both of them on fire in an instant.

The only one that didn't take a step back was Tsunade, although she was certainly not unaffected herself. She knew she had to get both Naruto and his guardian out of here before something went down that none of them could take back; something very dangerous and utterly **deadly.**

"Kakashi, that's enough! They behaved like idiots but they are still your comrades. If you attack, both you and I know you will be immediately discharged and probably even banished from the village from the feel of you chi. Besides, Naruto needs medical attention immediately. Head injuries are very dangerous and need immediate patching up before they become permanently hazardous. So get over yourself and follow me before your kid gets even more hurt because you're so blinded by your anger to remember why you were so upset in the first place!"

Kakashi's killer intent instantly died down to a much more suitable level when he felt the crushing guilt after understanding the truth in her words. He was so focused on being mad at the people who had threatened Naruto's safety that he had almost forgotten just what a state said boy was in himself. He was a better shinobi than that. He had learnt a long time ago to control his emotions and he was acting like a Goddamn child.

Before turning to follow Tsunade to the medical centre, he stared into Gai's and Genma's eyes darkly once more and said in a deceptively calm voice, "This isn't over."

With that threat hanging between them like a rising storm cloud, Kakashi promptly turned his back on them and leapt up into the surrounding trees, his attention now turned from his burning rage and focused solely on Naruto's well-being. If the kid was permanently damaged, he'd never be able to live with himself. The guilt and crushing despair would be far too much to cope with for his already screwed-up mind. He could already see Minato and Kushina looking at him with the most disgusted stares because he had let this happen to their only son. He had sworn he would protect him from the Nine-Tails' power and from enemy shinobi, but he had been so Goddamn pathetic that the kid had almost been taken out by one of Gai's stupid competitions because he'd wanted to sleep against a tree for a while and let someone else take over watching out for the boy.

The whole way to the hospital, Naruto never stopped wailing; his physical pain and utter distress rivaling that of Kakashi's inner turmoil, apparently. The more he wailed and the louder it became, the more both Tsunade and Kakashi became worried beyond belief. Kakashi used every tactic in the book he had developed in calming the boy down as he raced with everything he had to the hospital, but nothing seemed to work. The boy was far too overwhelmed to respond to anything other than what must have been a very painful head injury to a young child.

Once they finally reached the hospital, neither of them wasted any time in looking for an empty room, ignoring the indignant shouting of the woman at the reception desk and the shocked stares of the other patients and visitors who had previously been quietly waiting for their appointment or to see their sick or injured loved ones.

They took the first available room they could, Tsunade instantly snapping orders at Kakashi to put the kid on the cold, metal bench and hold him still while she hastily but efficiently retrieved her equipment. She felt like the only way she could distract herself from her growing worry at his increasing wails was to be the most professional and efficient doctor she could be while he was in her care.

Kakashi instantly did what he was told, his need to make sure everything was ok with his charge so powerful that he was practically on auto-pilot, taking any and all orders handed to him by the bustling woman. You probably could've told him to go fetch you a coffee and he would've blindly done it he was so damn distracted.

As the Sannin capably checked him over and patched him up with practiced ease, she couldn't help but notice how Kakashi's hands would tighten almost painfully on the boy whenever her glowing green hands would approach daringly close to the cut on his tanned forehead. It was as if he was just waiting for the opportunity to snatch him up if she probed it too harshly for his sanity.

About five or some minutes later, Naruto had finally stopped wailing, although a few tears escaped his bright blue eyes every now and then. They were both surprised by such a feat, the kid apparently being a strong buggar even when he was just barely a toddler. Tsunade had also finished her check-up a minute or so later, glad to be able to finally break the tense silence that had been hovering over the three of them.

"I've had a thorough look over him and he's absolutely fine in my opinion. It's a pretty damn nasty scratch but that's all it is; not even a mild concussion. Just watch over him carefully for twenty-four hours but, other than that, he's in the clear," she said proudly, so full of the most blinding relief that she could give the teen the good news. Who knows what Kakashi would have done if something really had been seriously wrong?

Kakashi himself almost fell over at finally knowing the boy was safe, his overwhelming relief so crushing that he had to let go of Naruto and put his head in his hands to get a hold of himself. He would never allow something like this to happen to the boy again while he was under his watch; **never.** He had been the luckiest damn bastard alive to have saved the boy in the nick of time. He couldn't afford for such an error to occur again, lest he not be quite as on time as he had been then. He almost laughed hysterically at that fact that, for someone so chronically late, he had arrived so marvelously on time to save Naruto from his possible death.

Tsunade, seeing the action so full of utter **emotion** in a way that she didn't even know the kid was capable of expressing, finally decided to dig up the guts to say what she had wanted to say for so long now that it was almost like breaking an ingrained habit not to say it. She had been so concerned of his reaction for so long that she hadn't been able to bring herself to say it but, now, she knew it was time. If she didn't say it now, she knew she would have lost the perfect opportunity that might never arise ever again.

"Don't worry," she said, making sure to put a firm conviction in her tone, "your son is safe, Kakashi."

Kakashi instantly tensed up, the phrase so completely unexpected that he couldn't move from his bowed position for a moment. The shock was so evident that Tsunade didn't need to see his mostly covered-up face to know it was there.

Not allowing him any time to retaliate like she knew he eventually would, she said to him with much more emotion than she had originally intended, "Don't you dare even **think **of denying it. For so long you've been so scared of how you feel because you've been afraid of losing him just like so many before him. But you have to let that go, Kakashi! I won't let you push him away for the rest of your life and then watch you look back at the end of it and realize you never knew just how much you cared until it was too late! That boy has given you so much more than any of us ever saw coming and we both know that when you look at him now, you don't see him as just some mission given to you by Minato. When you see him, you see the only person who was ever truly able to make you want to live a good life; you see **your son.** And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that because it is **true**. That boy may not be related to you biologically, but he has a bond with you stronger than any I've ever known. So fucking get over your fears and accept him for who he is to you now before you lose your fucking chance!"

Kakashi slowly picked his head up as the truth of her words hit him like a ton of bricks. She was right; she was absolutely right and he had been a bloody **fool **for not seeing it sooner. As he took in her heaving form and her sharp golden eyes, he realized that, all this time, when he had been trying to decipher what it was that was contained within that last step with Naruto, she had known. She had known, without a doubt in her mind, that his last step in accepting Naruto was accepting him as his family; his **son. **All this time, he had been so terrified that he would lose Naruto that he hadn't been able to see him for what he really was to him now. From the instant that kid had met his stare with those endless blue eyes of his, he should've known. You can't fight how you feel because, in the end, it will conquer you, one way or another. Naruto was **his child **now and he wouldn't ever forget that for as long as he lived.

Suddenly feeling the need to hold the boy as close as possible, the teen picked up the boy fiddling absently with the buttons on his orange jumpsuit. Once he was settled securely against his chest in the familiar hold, the boy looked up at him with his bright blue eyes, an emotion in them so clear yet so unidentifiable that Kakashi instantly broke down for unknown reasons and babbled on endlessly about how Goddamn sorry he was for being a useless father and how he'd be better now and he'd make sure he was happy all the time and-

"Daddy?"

Both Tsunade and Kakashi froze, only being able to stare at the kid in blatant shock as they registered just what had come out of Naruto's mouth. Like, holy shit, had the kid actually just spo-

"Please repeat that?!" Tsunade asked in a strained voice, as if her question was barely making it past her vocal cords.

"Daddy ok?" He asked instantly, his speech incredibly garbled but the words themselves undeniable nonetheless.

Once Kakashi had finally gotten over his incredible shock, he clutched the kid close as if he'd refuse to ever let go again, repeating in an apparently unstoppable mantra into the tiny ear just beside his covered mouth, "Thank you, Pup; thank you so much."

From that moment on, it was finally undeniably evident that Kakashi cared for Naruto as his own son; the boy caring about him just as much that his first words had been to question his guardian's – no his 'daddy's' – well-being. They're bond had finally been cemented in an unbreakable cycle. The two were finally able to both appreciate together just how undefeatable a bond between a true father and son can be.

**A/N: And so there's chappie 5! Once again I had another Tuesday off due to illness...maybe it's becoming a bit of a habit...hmmm...anyhoo at least it meant I had time to finish this up! I had my grandma's 70th on Sunday which went for AAAGGEESSS so it completely screwed up my schedule. Otherwise, I would've had this chapter up yesterday. Good timing granny . Other than that, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! What was obviously the point of this chapter was for Kakashi to fully face what he was feeling and realise that he viewed Naruto as his own son by now, not just some random mission. If anyone felt that Kakashi was a bit over-emotional during this chapter, I can understand that. I had my doubts about that too, but then I thought two things to myself...1: Kakashi is still about 16 years old; a teenager. He's gone through so much pain already and he was just about to lose the one person that had helped him feel good about life again. That's a lot to deal with for someone his age in particular, despite being a pretty tough guy. 2: Kakashi, whether or not he realised it at the time, cared for Naruto like his own son and, just imagine, what if that had happened to your own son? How would you react after him almost getting killed? Moving on from that...the next chapter should be up by early next week or the weekend (if you're lucky ;P) as usual. There'll be a pretty significant time skip in the next chapter, btw. While he's one and a half here, he'll be four in the next one. That means that Naruto is finally old enough to get his own POV included. Yay! Review if you have a minute and I'll see you all again when my next chapter's finished!**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**


	7. Chapter Six

"Hey, daddy…" Naruto asked slyly as he walked slowly up to his father reading on the couch. He was attempting to look very casual as he rocked on his heels nervously and innocently clasped his small hands behind his back but, really, it was pretty obvious when a four-year-old was trying to butter-up their parent. They just aren't at the age yet where they can pull off anything remotely stealthy to save their lives, especially when they were trying to scam the great Copy Ninja of the Hidden Leaf. Poor kid just didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

"No," Kakashi said automatically, not even giving the boy a chance to continue his request. He didn't even look up from his stupid orange book as he spoke.

The boy's apparently ineffective façade was instantly dropped and his hands moved to clasp at his sides angrily as he whined loudly, "You don't even know what I want though!"

His eye still scanning the pages casually, he returned in a monotone, "But I do. We both know that I know what you want and we also both know that the answer is going to be 'no' and we both know that that's not going to change."

Once his little mind made sense of his daddy's confusing sentence, he pouted exaggeratedly and clenched his fists even tighter when he practically shouted, "But I haven't had it for **ages**!"

Kakashi finally glanced up from his book and gave him a dull look when he said, "Pup, don't be ridiculous. You've had ramen two nights in a row this week already. Daddy wants you to eat some other things too and that's it. We already discussed that you could have it again next week when Tsunade takes you out, so I really don't see what the problem is."

"But I really want it tonight! And besides, your idea of other food is yucky vegetables and that meat you always overcook. Can't you just let me have it **one** more night? I promise I won't ask again until you say so!"

Not even mildly offended at having his cooking skills dissed so blatantly, he calmly replied, "Pup, there's nothing wrong with vegetables. They're good for you and you're really not eating enough of them as it is. And I've only overcooked the meat a few times and you've been using it against me ever since. Give a man a break, would you?" He said the last sentence with an amused glint in his single eye that Naruto wasn't able to pick up on as a result of his growing distress.

Realising Daddy was never going to give in this time, he slumped his shoulders miserably and stared dramatically at the floor with an exaggerated sadness in the deep blue of his eyes. He'd really wanted to have ramen again tonight!

Kakashi's persona instantly changed from mild amusement to a sort of grim pity…not that anyone could tell. No matter how much he tried to stay firm in his resolve, those damn blue eyes almost broke him every time. Naruto still didn't know just how much sway those damn things held over him and he was eternally grateful that the kid was oblivious in that regard. If he knew, boy would Kakashi be in trouble then. All it'd take was one look from those eyes used in the exact right way and, hell, he'd be giving that kid whatever he asked for.

Sighing resignedly and placing his book back in his ninja pouch, he walked over to Naruto and ruffled his short blond locks messily as he said in mild defeat, "How about we compromise? I know you've wanted me to give you some more taijutsu training for a while now. How about you go out into the yard and do the warm-ups I gave you last time and I'll come give you some pointers when you're done. How does that sound?"

It was like the boy lit up from the inside out at his father's words. His face, that had turned up to look at Kakashi in barely-contained excitement, was bright with enthusiasm as he shouted triumphantly, "That sounds even better than ramen! I promise I'll show you just how much I improved since last time! You're gonna be blown away, daddy; I promise!" With that, he leapt excitedly from under his father's hand still placed atop his head and practically bounced into the yard, instantly under-taking the warm-ups Kakashi had carefully taught him as soon as he reached the middle of the grassy area.

Kakashi's eye softened as he watched him warm-up with such glee that it was as if he'd promised him they'd move into Ichiraku's as soon as he was done. The brat had apparently taken on Minato and Kushina's love for ramen just as much as they had. He'd brought him to the stand as soon as he was old enough to eat the stuff as a sign of respect to his true parents…and partially regretted it ever since. The kid was absolutely **obsessed** with the stuff and it was becoming a real hassle to get him to eat anything other than those soupy noodles. What was even more mind-blowing was how thin his wallet was becoming as a result of it. The kid just wouldn't stop eating that crap until he practically burst. Nevertheless, their nights out there gave him nostalgic memories of when his sensei and sometimes Kushina would take him, Obito and Rin out for team celebrations, full of constant laughter and comfortable chatter. Perhaps he could make up for the fact that he never truly appreciated those small moments of happiness by enjoying the many times he and Naruto would go there, now and in the future.

For the time being, though, ramen had taken a sort of 'backseat' when Naruto had been truly introduced to the idea of 'shinobi'. Ever since his friends Shikamaru and Choji had ecstatically told him all about the fact that they would be starting at the academy in two years, he'd gotten caught up in their obvious excitement and was determined to become a super cool ninja just like the ones from the stories his buddies had told him. Just like with all boys his age, the idea of becoming a great and powerful hero was just too incredible to resist.

Kakashi found it most amusing, though, when Naruto would practically worship at his feet the few times he'd reveal old stories from missions and from the war. It wasn't long after he'd felt it was time to reveal such things that the kid was following him around everywhere, begging him to tell him more and to show him all of the cool moves he'd learnt during his time of being a 'super awesome and totally heroic ninja'.

That had then lead on to incessant nagging for him to teach him such moves so he could become just as awesome as his daddy. All he'd done was show him the Chidori and a few taijutsu maneuvers a couple of times to satisfy his cravings and Naruto had proceeded to insist that he teach him everything he knew with stars of adoration in his eyes. Kakashi had been very reluctant to push anything that strenuous on a kid so young and felt that it was proper etiquette to allow him to be trained properly by his teachers, but the kid had been so keen and so willing to learn even the smallest thing that Kakashi had eventually caved. He'd promised he'd teach him basic taijutsu, but nothing more. He'd allow him to learn chakra control and such at the academy. It had seemed like the least risky compromise.

They had only had a few sessions together so far (learning the standard warm-ups, routine stances and some basic kicks and punches) but the kid had been so ecstatic every damn time. Although he nagged his dad way too often for his deteriorating sanity for him to teach him even more, Kakashi was glad that the kid had such enthusiasm. His will to learn and to keep on trying to perfect every technique until he was absolutely exhausted was nothing short of awe-inspiring and Kakashi could already see that such determination would be very useful for the boy in the future.

Unfortunately, Naruto's training had given Kakashi a few concerns, though. Although the boy really did give it his all, he was having a much more difficult time grasping even the basic concepts than he had anticipated. Taking into account that he was probably comparing his ability to his parents' and his own a little unfairly, he still couldn't help but contemplate that Naruto probably should be able to grasp such things a little better than at the rate he was currently going at. It didn't help that his temper, which suspiciously reminded the elder Hatake of Kushina, interfered with his advancements on a regular basis.

Kakashi just hoped that such concerns would not end up putting him in danger in the future.

Once he realized that his thoughts had taken a rather sudden and grim turn, he pushed them aside to deal with at a more appropriate time. All he could do for now was offer the best support possible for Naruto and have faith that the kid would figure out the rest along the way. After all, he was the biological son of the great Fourth Hokage and one incredible kunoichi and he knew such underlying potential was not to be underestimated.

-Break-

It was a rather long time before Kakashi was **finally **able to convince Naruto that enough was enough for today. The boy had been having a rather frustrating predicament with the round-house kick and always somehow managed to end up in a tangled mess, no matter how many times his dad pointed out the correct stances and sequence of movements over and over and over again. His determination was admirable, but Kakashi was getting incredibly hungry (having already skipped breakfast just to help him out at the kid's utter insistence) and was practically falling over at the need for any sort of food. He impressively kept up a collected façade, but the grumblings of his empty stomach were really starting to mess with his concentration.

Naruto had looked rather guilty when he realized that he had really been quite selfish in his need to prove his strength, but Kakashi was quick to remind him that such guts and determined attitude was important for a ninja and that he should never apologise for such a morale…but it would probably be best if he toned it down to a more suitable level in the future.

Kakashi tried to ignore the fact that as Naruto got more exhausted, his chakra also started to gain a more orange tinge. He wasn't quite sure what that meant in regards to you-know-who and he hated to admit that perhaps he was putting off dealing with it as long as possible. The idea that that bastard of a demon was gaining more power once more and therefore a very real threat to Naruto's safety made him a bit dizzy. The fact that there was nothing he could really do about it either made something in his chest clench noticeably as well.

"Is it almost ready?! I'm **starving**!" Naruto's overly loud voice burst through his depressing mood and gave him the distraction he had been unconsciously seeking. As he looked down into those pleading blue orbs, he felt a sense of calm wash over him he didn't realize he'd needed so badly. The boy was still here and he was still ok; that was what really mattered in the end.

"Yeah yeah it's ready now you greedy little buggar. Just let me serve it up while you set the table, alright?" Although what he had said was obviously insulting, his visible eye was turned up in an attempt at cheerfulness and his voice was heavily tainted by fondness. The kid just instantly brought up his mood with his constant presence, whether said boy noticed that or not.

Realising his daddy was in one of those funny moods again that he could never quite figure out, he left Kakashi to his own devices and set the table, a mood of angst and nervousness overcoming him when he comprehended that it was time for him to ask the question he'd taken a week to work up the nerve for. If he didn't ask it tonight, he was sure that it'd take a really long time before he'd be brave enough to do it again. He knew Daddy wouldn't be mad, but Shikamaru had told him that questions like these often made parents sad and he really didn't want to do that.

When Kakashi had finally brought over the reasonably appetizing food consisting of cooked veggies and white rice, he noticed that Naruto was staring at the placemat he had set up for himself a little too intensely and his instincts instantly alerted him to the fact that something was weighing heavily on the boy's mind. Where he would've normally asked others straight up what was wrong, he instead allowed the boy the space to sort it out for himself first. He found that Naruto preferred to work things over in his mind before he approached someone else; otherwise he tended to clam up and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. He was rather like himself in that regard, Kakashi somewhat-fondly noted.

The very late lunch was a rather somber and quiet affair, despite the fact that nothing particularly unusual had happened that day and that the food was actually not all that bad. Naruto even ate all of his veggies without a single complaint to the great surprise and slight worry of his father. Naruto never let on that the reason he had done so was because he futilely hoped that that small bit of kindness would make the question he wanted to ask a little less mood dampening.

Even though, by now, they had both finished every little morsel on their plates, they together remained in their seats and stared at the table as if it would somehow break the obvious tension in the room. Neither of them approached the fact that they were both awkwardly waiting for Naruto to finally say what was weighing so heavily on his mind.

"The food was nice, you know," Naruto said quietly, still staring with now furrowed brows at the dining table.

After a quick and slightly confused glance in the boy's direction, Kakashi mildly replied, "I'm glad it was to your liking."

Feeling the heavy weight of his building worry, he added, "The soy sauce made it tastier; you should put it with the zucchini next time you cook it."

"I'll try to remember that in the future."

"Thanks."

Silence.

"Um, you know, your meat really isn't all that bad either. You should probably just not read until after you finish cooking. Maybe you won't forget about it then and let it overcook."

A slight pause.

"I'll try to remember that too."

More silence.

Great, this was really going somewhere, wasn't it? No matter how many times Naruto opened his mouth to just spit out the damn question already, he ended up vomiting out the first thing that came to mind instead. His daddy probably thought he was crazy, he admitted to himself miserably. He knew that daddy was waiting for him to say what he actually wanted to say and he was glad he was being so patient, but even he had to admit it was getting a bit ridiculous and making the awkward tension worse and worse by the second.

With wary determination, he said as fast as he possibly could (as if saying the words quicker would miraculously mean it'd be easier to spit them out), "Whathappenedtomummy?"

Shocked at the sudden outburst, Kakashi's single grey eye snapped up to meet the nervous blue of Naruto's, as he took a moment to figure out just what the hell the kid had said. Unfortunately for the young adult, it wasn't long before his quick mind comprehended the blurted words and a sense of unexpected dread consumed him.

To be honest, he really shouldn't be as utterly frozen in surprise as he was, his gaze still locked with that of the young boy's, whose own eyes were now being steadily consumed by a rising panic. He'd been expecting the question since the kid was about three years old, but had been selfishly hoping he'd have a little longer to decide what exactly to do. In all that time, he'd still come up with absolutely nada to say in return and now the moment had come and he had no prepared reassurances or comforting gestures.

Super.

Sighing in remorse for both himself and Naruto, his gaze flashed to the floor for a few moments to give himself a few moments to close his eye and collect himself, before slowly meeting with Naruto's eyes once more that were by now cloaked in a dread of his own.

It hit him then why Naruto had been so unusually quiet and somber during lunch. It hadn't been because he was just nervous about his question like Kakashi had originally thought; it had been because he was worried that his daddy would be sad because he had brought up deeply buried grief regarding a woman that didn't even exist in the first place.

Oh, yeah, that too. Not only would Kakashi have the task of reassuring Naruto about the missing presence of his mother, but he also had to feed the lie he'd told everyone else he knew, other than Tsunade, straight to a boy he considered to be his own son. The mere thought of doing something so…so…**deceptive** to Naruto about his **own mother** made Kakashi feel like the worst parent alive. Fuck the fact that it was for his own good; he was about to tell the boy some stupid bullshit about someone that wasn't even real and make him believe in a mummy that was so very shallow compared to that of the inspiring beauty, in both body and soul, that comprised the identity of Kushina Uzumaki. The boy would never know just what a wonderful person his true mother had been and instead end up believing the woman had abandoned him because she was a spineless coward.

"Relax, Pup. I'm not upset; I promise. You have every right to know what happened to her," he took a deep breath before continuing, "Your mummy was a very nice person and she was very beautiful. She talked about you all the time before you were conceived and she was so excited to know you. There were a few complications, though, when you were born and Mummy had to leave. I'm sure wherever she is, though, that she loves you very, very much and thinks a lot about you every day."

Naruto looked back at his daddy with a look of slight suspicion when he returned, "But…what were the complications? Why would she leave me?"

Kakashi honestly felt like a piece of him died in that moment. Naruto looked so innocent yet so mature in that moment as he awaited the news even a four-year-old could tell he wouldn't like. He was trying to be strong, like he always did, but he was just a boy. Even if he wasn't just a boy still, the news would hurt terribly either way.

Feeling like now was the time to offer the most comfort, he opened his arms in an unusual initiation of physical affection and Naruto instantly pounced on the opportunity that he almost never had the chance to revel in. His daddy had never been a very physical person and therefore any affection in that sort of area he got he was sure to treasure greatly.

Once Naruto was situated comfortably in his lap, he forced himself to launch straight into what he knew needed to be said; it wasn't like he had much choice.

"Pup, sometimes things happen in this world that are just not meant to be. When I met your mother and she met me, we came to care for each other very much. She had a big role back in her birthplace, though, and we both knew we were never supposed to stay together forever. We were very fond of one another, though, and so decided we'd spend what time we had together making happy memories we could carry with us for the rest of our lives. Your mummy never wanted to leave you, but she had big responsibilities back where she came from and she knew I'd raise you right, the way she wasn't able to do then in her position."

"But wasn't I important? Why didn't she try to do her job and take care of me? Was I not good enough?" Despite sounding so mad, teardrops clung stubbornly to the edges of his eyelids, kept there by sheer willpower alone.

As Kakashi looked back into those wavering blue orbs, he felt something sting slightly in his covered Sharingan eye. Obito was attempting to cry for him in ways that Kakashi felt he had no right to do with his own grey eye, it seemed.

Pulling the tiny head against his chest, he smoothed his bright blonde hair in a calming manner as he replied in a noticeably strained voice, "Of course you were important, Pup. She couldn't abandon her people, though, just like the Hokage here can't abandon his. He's had to make some very tough decisions himself that I'm sure were just as heart breaking as the one your mother had to make. They both knew, though, that taking care of their people was so very important.

She loved you so much; she always did. I know I said that a lot of times, but I need you to believe it. She didn't leave you because of something stupid like you weren't good enough; she left you because she had a purpose she couldn't ignore. Can you understand that, Pup? Don't ever let anyone make you believe otherwise, ok?" Why Kakashi had slipped and started unconsciously describing Kushina at the end, he didn't know. Perhaps, part of him wanted Naruto to be able to believe in a woman that carried even the tiniest trait relating to his true mother, so that at least he could carry some part of her with him, no matter how small or indirect that part may be.

Naruto didn't say anything in return, his only response being to cling tightly to his father's jounin vest as Kakashi simply continued to hold him close. He didn't cry; he didn't shout; he didn't so much as hitch his breath slightly. He just held on for all he was worth, as if Daddy could be the one to anchor him when he felt so lost. The boy's emotions must have been all over the place and he simply didn't know which emotion he wanted to hold onto yet to see him through.

Abruptly, he set himself back on his father's lap slightly and allowed his clenched fists to release the now rumpled flack jacket. Looking into his father's face with an unreadable look, he asked in a quiet voice, "Can we go out for a while? I'm thinking too much. I don't want to think so much anymore."

Noting the slight desperation in the boy's voice, his body shook imperceptibly with absolute uncontrollable emotion. **He **had done this. He was the one who had put Naruto in so much pain at the moment that he hardly knew what to do with himself. He wanted to scream at himself; shout so loud that it tore his throat to shreds and destroyed him because dammit he was never supposed to hurt him; not like this. It wasn't even the truth in the first place. God, what the fuck was wrong with him?

His voice cracked almost unnoticeably when he said, "Sure, Pup. Let's head out."

With that, Kakashi lifted Naruto up and placed him on the ground before he, too, got up from his dining chair. Grabbing the smaller hand presented to him, they both set out towards the front door, neither of them speaking despite having so much to say.

-Break-

"Hey, Shikimaru! Choji!" Naruto shouted animatedly, a bright grin on his face as he charged away from his father and up to the playground where he had spotted his friends sitting casually on the swings, Choji eating his chips with great vigor as usual.

Sighing in slight amusement, he watched him go as he trudged slowly behind, feeling no need to halt the boy. As long as he was happy unexpectedly seeing his friends, that was all that really mattered at the moment. The both of them were still rather torn up inside, but the relaxing walk and basking in each other's mutually calming presence had brought them back to a state that didn't feel quite so grim. Kakashi wasn't an idiot; he knew the both of them still had a lot of pent up emotion to deal with, but he was in no rush. He'd make sure Naruto was as happy and carefree as he had been earlier that day as soon a possible. For now, he'd let him enjoy playing with his friends. Memories such as these were precious and not to be tainted; Kakashi knew that all to well.

Feeling like he needed some time alone, he walked up to Shikimaru and Choji's mothers whom he had spotted chatting lightly on a bench about ten metres or so from where the boys were currently situated. Once they spotted him walking over, they greeted him politely and asked if him and Naruto were going to join them.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Kakashi said with a practiced innocent eye-smile, "but do you mind watching over him while you're here with your boys for a little bit? I have some things I've been meaning to get done for quite some time that I can't really do in the presence of Naruto."

Both women taking his vague response at the end as alluding to personal shinobi business, they asked no more and simply happily replied that they would watch over Naruto as he took all the time he needed. The boys were having so much fun in each other's presence anyhow, so it wasn't like they'd be going anywhere anytime soon.

"Thank you very much. I will be back as soon as possible."

With a short wave, he turned towards Naruto and walked a bit closer to the group before saying casually, "You guys mind hanging out with Pup for a bit? I've got some things to do but I'll be back to get him soon, alright?"

After both Shikimaru and Choji had snorted slightly at the 'degrading' nickname, they both responded that it was alright and Kakashi thanked them politely. He then turned to face Naruto, who had an obvious pout on his face in response to the nickname he'd begged his daddy not to say in front of his friends. His gaze softened heavily as he looked at him for a long moment, before he snapped out of his unusual daze and straightened his hunched shoulders.

"See you later, guys! Have fun!" And with that, he disappeared in a whirl of leaves, leaving the children in his wake staring in barely-restrained awe.

"H-he just disappeared!" Choji exclaimed in utter amazement.

"No kidding! How often does he do that?" Shikimaru asked in an unusually interested tone.

"I've never seen him do that before," Naruto replied with a slight frown, the small moment of amazement for him having vanished abruptly. He wondered idly why his daddy had disappeared so suddenly. Was he still sad? Was that why he had left so suddenly?

His scowl deepened even further and it wasn't long before his friends got over their initial awe and noticed his gloomy mood. They both looked at each other in worry, before Shikimaru took the dreaded first step and asked, "So, did you ask him?"

His gaze snapped to his friend's in surprise, before turning to face the floor in what appeared to be undeniable misery. His friends had actually been the ones who had urged him to ask his father about his mother in the first place. Naruto had never really thought that much about his mother…or perhaps he was just afraid of what he would discover. Either way, when his friends had asked about his mother and had found out the kid new nothing about her, they had been insistent he asked. They believed it was very important for all kids to know about 'Mummy', whether she was there or not. It just seemed incomprehensible to have it otherwise to a four-year-old's mind.

"Yeah, I did," he replied solemnly as he plopped onto the ground in a pile of tangled limbs, similar to the way he'd fallen earlier in the day when he'd continuously failed at performing the roundhouse kick.

Shikimaru and Choji once again looked at each other in even more worry, this time with Choji bravely taking the next step and simply asking, "And? How did it go?"

Not noticing his friends' growing concern, he still stubbornly kept his gaze to the floor of the playground as he told them everything his father had said, leaving out the part where he'd almost cried. They were at the age now where it was considered totally uncool to cry anymore; that was for 'babies'. Naruto never realized the fact that his friends would never have faulted him for such an action in the face of the awful news he had received.

It was quiet for a moment as Shikimaru and Choji gave themselves time to allow the news to fully sink in to their still-developing minds. In fact, they were still trying to comprehend such a crushing discovery when a new voice announced to Naruto's back, "That's all? Honestly? Mummy left you behind and you're acting like your whole world fell apart. It's absolutely pathetic."

Naruto froze for a moment as his friends' heads snapped up to look at the newcomer they hadn't yet noticed as a result of being so taken-in by Naruto's tale. Once their eyes met with a pair of dark black, they both gave him a warning glare that clearly told him to back off and leave their poor friend alone.

Naruto knew that voice; in fact, he'd know that voice just about anywhere. Turning around slowly with the darkest glare a four-year-old could manage, he said in a clearly angry tone, "What did you just say, teme?"

Once their equally blazing gazes locked, the boy sighed in mock sympathy and said in a haughty tone, "What are you, deaf?"

"Shut up, Sasuke! You have no idea what's going on here so just go away!" Naruto then shot up off the ground and unconsciously got into a battle-ready stance, their fights so common now that it was practically instinctual.

Sasuke gave him an angry sneer and clenched his fists tightly when he said darkly, "**I **have no idea what's going on, dobe? **You** are the one that has no idea what it's like to truly lose someone! If that's what's made you so upset, then you're just weak!"

Naruto looked back into Sasuke's hateful glare in absolute shock, those words repeating over and over again in his small head. He'd forgotten what had happened to Sasuke not so long ago in the face of his blinding emotions, finally understanding why he was suddenly taking such an aggressive approach to the subject. He felt like Naruto's pain was unfounded because he had only found out his mother had left him, while Sasuke's family had been slaughtered by one of his most precious people.

While normally he would've instantly backed down and awkwardly apologized for being so thoughtless, today was a different kind of day. He'd been so worried about making Daddy even more sad that he'd refused to allow himself to openly express how he was truly feeling. He'd been desperately searching for a quick release and, as always, Sasuke had presented the perfect target. They always ended up being each other's ideal punching bag to let out their frustrations, one way or another, so what was another round?

"I'm not weak! I'm so much better than you will ever be! Let me show you!" And with that, Naruto launched himself at the unsuspecting Uchiha, landing on him so hard that they both tumbled to the ground in a painful instant. Sasuke had never expected Naruto would react quite so quickly and had therefore caught him off guard, but that upper hand sure wouldn't last for long.

Tumbling over and over on the unforgiving ground, they proceeded to mercilessly beat the shit out of each other in any way they could. At first, they used the basic techniques they had each learnt from their respective families, but eventually their desire to tear into each other had become so strong they let all inhibition go and attacked each other in blind fury. They clawed, they scratched, they smacked, they kicked; whatever felt like the perfect way to inflict pain on one another at that moment.

They were so focused on their tasks and one another that neither of them noticed Shikimaru and Choji trying desperately to find an opening to break them up and their respective mothers dashing over in a panic with shouts of alarm, both of them desperately making their way over in the hope nothing to damaging happened before they arrived.

Suddenly, both boys were snapped out of their blinding trance as they felt themselves lifted up by the backs of their jumpers and tossed **hard **at a near-by tree, the both of them colliding with it head-on and feeling a slight dizziness replacing their once uncontrollable primal urges.

All was still and silent as an incredibly controlled voice asked their turned backs, "And just what the hell was going on there, huh?"

Sasuke looked back with a confused glare, while Naruto looked at the man in a growing panic.

As Naruto scrambled for something to say to the man that was so obviously (even to the four-year-olds surrounding him in slight fear) barely restraining his fury, Sasuke instead asked in a sharp voice, "And just who the hell are you to be asking? This is between me and him; meaning it's none of your business, shinobi."

A chilled feeling washed over the boy as a dark grey eye locked with his in a cool yet absolutely scathing way, the emotions clear in his eye and his posture so cold and yet so full of an out-of-control burning fire. The feeling was absolutely indescribable yet wholly terrifying, even to an Uchiha.

"This is my business, in fact," replied the frozen voice, "You see, I'm Naruto's father. That's why I'd like to know just why the two of you were trying to tear each other apart. Is that any way to treat a future fellow member of the academy and comrade?"

Finally finding the courage to say something before Sasuke could blurt out an outraged reply, Naruto said in a small voice, "Daddy, it's ok, really. Sasuke and I were just-" Everything he was about to nervously blurt out instantly escaped his mind as that dark stare turned from his rival to Naruto himself, becoming even more full of barely-controlled anger, if that was possible.

Before Naruto could attempt to smooth over his father's obvious fury, a woman's voice said nervously but firmly, "Perhaps you should take him home and sort this out, Kakashi. Here and now is not the time."

All eyes turned from the cringe-worthy stare down between father and son to Shikimaru's mother, the one that had spoken the levelheaded words. Kakashi, allowing some of the fire to defuse from his eyes as he met her questioning stare, said in a tight voice, "Very well. I'm sorry we caused you so much trouble. Once we're done, I'll be sure to get Naruto to find you at some point and apologise for his behavior. Thank you very much for watching over him while I was unavailable. We'll leave you to it."

With those unusually formal words, he turned towards the playground's exit, walking stiffly towards it, as if the tightness he had forced on his limbs was the only thing holding him back. Holding him back from what, none of them knew.

As Naruto silently rose from his position and rubbed his sore head, neglected in his panic at his father's sudden and fiery appearance, Kakashi turned his head slightly so that his voice could be carried clearly back to the Uchiha still sitting in stunned and perturbed silence beside the tree Naruto was reluctantly trudging away from. Just as Naruto had caught up to walk beside his father solemnly, Kakashi finally said, "Just remember what I told you back there, Sasuke. Your comrades are just as important as family; don't realize that too late."

With that, Naruto (with a bowed head) and Kakashi (with barely-restrained emotion) walked in absolute silence out of the playground and towards their home, leaving a group of equally stunned, worried and angry people to simply watch them go in a silence of their own.

-Break-

Naruto was naturally a very loud person. In fact, some would say that he never shut up and it was absolutely annoying beyond belief sometimes. Their anger never lasted for long, though, when they realized that the boy was just so full of energy and **life **that he simply couldn't help himself. His constant kindness towards those he cared for and his never-ending happiness was unparalleled by many and therefore others couldn't help but bask in such obvious carefree joy.

However, at the moment, Naruto was as silent as he's possibly ever been; a real feat if you knew the boy well. He was currently sitting in the living room, staring at his father's unusually stiff and straight back through the clear glass of his home's sliding doors, as the man sat on the edge of the porch leading to the backyard and looked on into absolute nothingness.

The lack of action and speaking was really starting to worry the boy. All the way home, his daddy hadn't said a damn word, not even to those he knew politely greeting him as he walked by. He just stared ahead as if he didn't even notice them, an unreadable look in his single eye. Sure, there was definitely some serious anger visible in it, but there was something else there too; something unidentifiable but somehow even more terrifying.

As soon as they had arrived back home, Kakashi had proceeded to completely ignore the boy standing in the kitchen awaiting his expected lecture and punishment and moved straight on to the porch, doing exactly what he was still doing now. He hadn't moved a single centimetre for a whole half hour; not so much as even fricking breathing.

In the past, if Naruto had done anything wrong, his daddy had been quick to lay down the law; lecturing him about it and making him clean up the eternally messy study or something as incentive not to do such things again.

Even though Naruto knew that what he had done had definitely been worse than those silly pranks or bad words he'd said, he still thought the behavior must be unusual. Daddy's supposed to yell and stuff, right? He's not just supposed to sit there like a stupid statue and act like he didn't even exist.

Finally having had enough of the silence trembling with an underlying tension waiting impatiently to burst forth, Naruto got up from his position in the living room and walked slowly on weak legs towards his father, ignoring the slight twist of pain in his gut from the nasty hit Sasuke had managed to get in earlier. He had been fortunate that their fighting had ended up so primal that they hadn't had the necessary skill to actually land any decent hits. Apart from the growing bruise on his belly, he was outwardly perfectly healthy; not a damn scratch on him. He idly wondered earlier why Sasuke had so many more visible injuries than him by the end of their fight despite the both of them landing an equal amount of blows, but he obviously had more important concerns to be focusing on at the time.

As he opened the sliding door, the squeaky sound made him wince slightly in a moment of unfounded panic, as if just that tiny sound could set off the bomb in Kakashi just waiting to magnificently explode.

Taking a moment to watch his father for any sign of acknowledgement, he trembled slightly when he found none. This unexpected reaction from Daddy was scary and he wanted him to stop. He didn't care if he screamed or if he gave him an outrageous punishment, just so long as he did something; **anything.**

As he walked forwards and sat at a considerable distance away from his father, he suddenly felt surprisingly numb, save the dreaded anticipation growing within him like a wave slowly rising to the surface.

After a few moments of utter silence, he looked nervously at his father's lax grip on the edge of the porch and said with sincere remorse, "I'm sorry, Daddy. I really didn't mean to make you so upset."

That was obviously not quite the right thing to say. In a split-second, the hand Naruto was watching clenched impossibly tight around the wooden boards, the grip so incredible that the wood must be nastily cutting into his pale skin. Suddenly feeling very afraid for reasons he couldn't quite decipher, he raised his head slowly in fear and looked in stunned shock back at the single grey eye blazing with the same fury from earlier that day, except so much more intense now that it was practically **alive.**

His harsh stare never wavering, he said darkly, "You're '**sorry'?** That's all you have to say?! You were completely out of control back there! How many times have I told you that your comrades are one of the most important parts of being a ninja?! You're supposed to look out for them and work together, not attack them!"

As he watched his father breathing heavily from his angry words, he ashamedly noticed tears pricking at his blue eyes. Daddy was just so **mad **and he didn't like it. Daddy wasn't supposed to be this mad; he wanted him to stop!

"Daddy, I'm sorry! I don't know what else I'm supposed to say!" He cried as he felt a few tears escape down his whiskered cheeks uncontrollably, his emotions overtaking him in an entirely new way this time.

"There's nothing else you can say to make what you did suddenly alright, Naruto! The first thing I told you when you asked me about being ninja was that 'those that abandon the mission are scum, but those that would abandon even one of their friends or comrades are worse than scum'. I always believed I had raised you to appreciate that, but perhaps I was wrong."

At that last statement, Naruto's eyes widened dramatically and he stiffened to the point where his small back was as straight as a board. He honestly couldn't believe it. Even though he hadn't said the words outright, had Daddy really suggested that he could be **worse **than **scum**?!

Kakashi, appearing to have suddenly realized what exactly it was he had just blurted out, widened his eye to match that of his son's, an apology for his completely awful and totally untrue remark poised on his suddenly cold lips. He hadn't meant it the way it had sounded, he just wanted the boy to accept how important that rule was.

Before he could do so, though, Naruto shot up from his spot on the porch, his finger pointed accusingly at Kakashi with tears absolutely pouring down his face as he shouted in a pain-filled tone, "All I wanted to say was that I was sorry and tell you that I would never disappoint you like that again, but you wouldn't even listen to me! You got so mad and so quiet and I was so scared and I just wanted you to **stop!** If that's how you really want to treat your own **family**, then **you're **the one that's scum here, not me!"

And with that, Naruto turned his red face messy with uncontrollable tears towards the sliding doors and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him straight through the small opening they presented and up the wooden stairs, heading straight for his room. Once he had quickly dashed inside, he slammed the door with a deafening bang as he slumped against the cold surface and **sobbed.** All he could think about was the fact that his father had actually implied that he was worse than scum, the words themselves not all that bad, but the meaning behind them being able to bring so much agony to his already cracked heart. Daddy had been so insistent earlier that he cared about him when he had told him about his mummy leaving him behind, but perhaps he had lied. Maybe, Daddy really did think of him as nothing worse than scum after all.

With renewed determination, Naruto decided he had to leave and he had to leave **now. **Just being in the same house as Daddy was making him even sadder and so he, without a single thought for regret, stamped on over to his window and practically threw the damn thing open, climbing outside carefully and down the drainpipe without a single pause. His daddy was already so mad at him anyhow, so what was the point in getting worried about his reaction? He barely even noticed the pain it caused the bruise on his stomach at his sudden and forceful movements.

As tears still streamed down his face never-endingly, he glared at the sky slowly turning a deep purple as he nodded to himself silently and sprinted towards the one person he knew could offer him the most comfort in a situation as awful as the one he was in now.

-Break-

"**Naruto?** What the hell are you doing here at this hour?! Does your father know you're here? What's going on?"

All it took was one mention of his daddy and he instantly lost the tiny amount of control of his emotions he had been able to obtain on the way over. With a soft cry, he launched himself at the woman standing worriedly in her doorway, completely missing the fact that he was about an inch away from smacking into the half-open doorway instead.

"Granny Tsunade, I don't know what to do anymore! I just…I just want it all to stop!" he sobbed in desperation, his mind so muddled by now that he barely knew what he was saying anymore.

By this point, Tsunade was incredibly alarmed. What could possibly have happened that was so awful to put the normally cheerful boy in such a wretched state? Had something happened to one of his friends? Or Kakashi?

With that last thought making her pause slightly in panic, she collected herself enough to create a reasonably calm façade as she gently pried the boy from being practically wrapped around her like a ribbon. Once she had crouched down and looked him understandingly in his blue orbs bright with some of the largest tears she'd ever seen, she said firmly, "Naruto, you need to calm down. Letting your emotions control you like this will only put you in hysterics. You sit at the island counter and I'll make you some hot cocoa to help you calm down. Then we have to talk about what's going on here; whether you like it or not. Got it?"

Realising that he was probably making her worry a lot more than necessary, he scrubbed his bright red face harshly until only a few tears were leaking from his stinging eyes. Once he felt composed enough to speak more coherently, he asked in a wet voice, "Can I have some whipped cream, too?"

Smiling subconsciously at the completely innocent question, she continued to look him steadily in the eye as she said kindly, "Sure, kid; as much as you want."

The tiniest twitch of his lips was seen before he walked slowly over to the counter and scrambled awkwardly onto one of the bar stools. Neither of them said a single word as Tsunade bustled on over and prepped Naruto's hot chocolate with the most whipped cream the boy had ever seen; way more than she had ever allowed him to have before. She was doing her best to give him some time and some much needed space to get a hold of himself, but her patience was running thin as it was. From Naruto's reactions now, she could tell that nobody was in life-threatening danger, but she could clearly see that something very bad had gone down; something that was slowly making the boy break apart at the seams right before her eyes.

Once the hot chocolate had been prepared to perfection a couple of minutes later, Tsunade carefully carried the steaming mug towards the living room, a silent signal for Naruto to follow.

The boy instantly complied without a word, snuggling into her comfiest armchair he always liked to sit on when he came over as soon as he arrived within the room. Tsunade herself sat tensely on one of her longer couches, leaning forwards towards Naruto across the coffee table in morbid anticipation as she silently placed the mug before him.

Accepting the hot mug cautiously, he avoided the whipped cream at first as he took a small sip of the sweet substance underneath, before scrunching his face up at the temperature. A bit too hot to drink right at that moment, it seemed.

"Sorry," Tsunade said, finally breaking the surprisingly comfortable yet tense silence. "I didn't mean to make it quite so hot. It was a bit chilly out and so I thought you might need some extra warming up from your trip over here. It looks like I over-did it a little though, huh?"

Looking back at her solemnly with a tense jaw, he said quietly, "That's alright, Granny. It still tastes just as good as usual."

Tsunade sighed slightly at his unusually polite attitude, before shaking herself minutely and returning seriously, "Kid, I know you don't feel like it right now, but I need to know what happened. You understand that, right? All I want to do is help."

Looking remorseful at worrying her so much, he reluctantly started in on what had happened earlier that day, "I found out about mummy today. Daddy told me about why she wasn't here and he said she loved me and that she didn't want to leave me, but the whole time I kept on wondering if he was just lying to me to make sure I wouldn't be sad. I got so angry that she would choose to leave me behind even though she was doing it for her village and then Daddy took me to the playground where I saw Shikimaru and Choji and Daddy left me there for a bit to play while he did stuff and-and I told them what happened and Sasuke had snuck up on us and said I was weak because I didn't know what it was like to really lose someone! I didn't mean to; I swear! I just got even more angry and I just really wanted him to hurt too and so I just attacked him and Daddy threw us into a tree to stop us and he was **so mad.** I was really really scared and I'm pretty sure he was even scaring everyone else there and then he took me home and he was just staring out on the porch at nothing and it was so creepy and scary! He sat there for a whole half hour until I came over and all I wanted to do was say I was sorry and he told me that hurting my comrades meant I was worse than scum and I just-I just-I-" After that stream of endless words depicting rather stunted events full of obvious confusion and pain, he could no longer control the damn of emotions those awful memories brought up and threw his head into his tiny hands as he sobbed for the umpteenth time that day.

Instantly feeling the need to comfort the traumatized boy, she bustled on over as quick as she could and picked the boy up while allowing him to curl into her ample chest as he sobbed his little heart out. She proceeded to sit down on the armchair Naruto had been sitting in beforehand and stroked his back soothingly as she silently sent out waves of reassuring comfort to the small boy.

As she allowed him to let out all of his pent-up sorrow, she, too, attempted to deal with own her wave of emotions. Naruto's fight with Sasuke was understandably much rougher than usual as a result of finding out about the mother he believed was his own. She tried to ignore the threateningly looming guilt hanging like a dark cloud over her conscience, but it was incredibly difficult. She had also been responsible for creating such an awful lie to the totally undeserving boy, but just allowing everyone to believe that Naruto's mother had been a sweet woman who had so very unfortunately died would seem too convenient to many of the more intelligent shinobi and therefore raise too many dangerous questions.

Kakashi, though, being the boy's father, would undoubtedly be feeling catastrophically worse than she was, particularly since he was the one who had to directly tell the kid the stupid story. He was so utterly self-destructive in the way he allowed his guilt to destroy him from the inside out, as if that somehow was his own punishment for his sin. He must have been absolutely torn apart on the inside with no healthy release, as had become an unfortunate instinctual mechanism for him now.

With the both of them so utterly consumed by the endless waves of negative emotion, it was inevitable that Kakashi would lash out uncontrollably at someone eventually. Unfortunately, Naruto just happened to have created the breaking point when he had so viciously attacked Sasuke in his own wave of lashing out. Normally, Kakashi would have handled the situation firmly but accordingly, but Kakashi obviously hadn't been feeling all that normal at that moment. In fact, he barely must have been in control at all.

Although she wasn't quite able to decipher why he had been so damn weird on the way back and when they had arrived back home, whatever it was must've been so consuming that he hadn't even realized the awful thing he had said to his son until it was just too damn late.

That was when her anger finally had a moment in the spotlight. How could Kakashi be such a Goddamn thoughtless **arse?** Here Naruto was, practically falling apart at the seams once he found out that his mother had essentially abandoned him, and Kakashi was letting his own selfish emotions control him like a Goddamn **child. **She had trusted him to always look out for Naruto in every which way he needed, but just look at what he'd done the moment things got a little harder than usual for him to deal with. It was just so bloody **wrong **and Tsunade was sure as hell gonna make him believe that the first damn chance she had.

"Granny Tsunade?" a small voice asked, thick once more from so many endless tears.

Snapping her head down to the small boy attentively, she gave him her most reassuring look as she replied, "What is it, Naruto?"

He fidgeted nervously in her lap as he said, "I know what I did was wrong. I should never have attacked Sasuke like that because I know letting out your anger on others is wrong. It's just…isn't that what Daddy just did? Didn't he just let his anger out on me just then? How does that make sense if he was the first one who taught me how important that rule was?"

Blinking slightly at such a mature assumption from a boy so young, she gathered his tiny form to her chest once more. It looked like it was time to tell the kid some things about his father he didn't know. Despite her anger, she knew it was up to her to start the process of salvaging their relationship. She cared about them both too much to make it any worse. They made each other so happy and full of life that she couldn't bear them to continue this anymore.

"To be honest, kid, I don't quite know why your daddy was so emotional. Sure, some of it is pretty easy to figure out, but the rest is kind of murky…even to someone like me. All I know is that you're very much correct when you say Daddy was feeling overwhelmed by lots of emotions and therefore said and did a lot of things that he didn't mean. I know for sure, though, that he never meant to hurt you.

It's just that, Daddy sometimes forgets that you're not one of his soldiers he's commanding without really meaning to. You see, you're daddy has gone through some pretty awful things too, far worse than either of us can imagine. He closed himself off from a lot of people as a result and ended up treating others just as another one of his soldiers so that he could pretend he didn't care about them so much.

All of us were so worried that he was going to stay that way forever. We feared he'd stay in a cold and detached reality until he faded away into nothingness. But, then he received something very precious, something so valuable that he could no longer hide away from how he really felt and who he truly was. Do you want to know what they very precious gift happened to be?"

By now, Naruto was no longer curled into her warm body and instead was staring up at her in growing anticipation. He nodded so eagerly in return to her request that his chin almost smooshed straight into her ample chest with every motion of his head.

Smiling at the fact that he no longer looked so devastatingly unhappy, she conveyed quietly, "**You. **You were the one who saved your father from his endless torment. If it hadn't been for you, your daddy might never have been truly happy in his life ever again. He so very nearly could have ended up dying alone without ever knowing the absolute joy you could bring his broken heart.

What I'm trying to say is: you're daddy loves you so very much and he's flying blind here on how he's supposed to go about that. Just know that he's gone through so much accepting you into his life and that he is so grateful that he did. You saved him from so much more than either of us will ever realize, I'm sure. Whatever it was your father said about you being scum, I guarantee he didn't mean it and I'm positive he's beating himself up about it inside terribly; even as we speak. In fact, he'll probably come knocking on that door before we know it because he'll be so worried about what's happened to you. He really cares for you **that much**; don't ever forget that."

Stunned. That was probably the only emotion Naruto's little mind could put a real name to. He had had no idea that Daddy had been so sad for so long. Whenever he looked at Daddy, he always seemed so invincible and strong; like he was completely untouchable. It seemed so silly, thinking back on it now, to believe that.

According to Granny Tsunade, Daddy had been through things far worse than finding out his mummy had left him. Even now, he still had never gotten over that pain and it still hurt him all the time so badly. Just knowing the pain he felt now and realizing that Daddy has felt so much worse, made him feel a little guilty, despite knowing that that wasn't the point of what Granny had told him.

For so much of this day, he had irrationally thought Daddy believed that he was worthless, when in fact, he had been entirely wrong the whole time. He had been so consumed by self-pity that that had been the first thought that had come to mind when Daddy had lashed out at him; but now he could finally see the forest through the trees.

**He **was the main reason why Daddy was happy in his life now; why he wasn't so lonely or sad as he apparently used to be. He didn't know why and he honestly didn't really care right now. All that mattered was that Daddy needed him more than he had ever realized. That was why he was going to wait for Daddy to come and they were going to make things right. He loved Daddy so much and if he needed him as much as Granny Tsunade said, then he would be there for him; no matter what.

-Break-

_What the __**fuck **__is wrong with me?_

No matter how many times he numbly turned over what had happened in his mind, that thought always seemed to come back to Kakashi full circle.

If he had felt like shit before, that was nothing compared to the way he felt now. He swore he had heard a distant shattering sound when he had said…what he had said to Naruto earlier. He couldn't help but believe that that was the sound of his world falling apart just a little bit.

He had been so torn up about what he was doing to Naruto's life; how he was breaking it apart piece by piece with his endless lies that he was completely volatile in regards to his emotions. His personal walk to attempt to gather himself had failed miserably and he had therefore turned right back around pretty quick with a heavy heart and feelings raging within like an uncontrollable storm.

When he had returned and instantly been confronted with Naruto fighting Sasuke, sure, he was mad…but he was mostly just scared. They had been attacking one another so **viciously **that he swore his heart had skipped a beat. As they attempted to practically tear into each other, all he could see were flashbacks of that boulder heading straight for a tiny one-and-a-half-year-old child, the resulting head wound that could have been so very fatal and that tiny little infant crying his eyes out in pain and absolute fear.

He hadn't even thought for a second at the consequences and charged in there in a wave of pointless anger. He knew the way he had thrown the kids apart was too harsh, but that had seemed insignificant in the face of what he had just seen and the awful memories it had brought up as a result.

That boiling chill the poor kids had felt they probably thought was just his anger bubbling below the surface…which it partially was, to be fair. What they were all too young to fully comprehend, though, was that most of that was his killing intent spiking to rather noticeable levels with no exact target. He felt like crap for scaring them all so much, particularly Naruto, with something that should only ever be used on the battlefield, but for the life of him he just hadn't been able to control it. He'd finally hit the end of the road and it was taking everything he had not to fall over the cliff awaiting him and lose himself to the fall.

After that, the trip home had been an absolute blur. His thoughts were spinning and his emotions were warring with another so fiercely that he hadn't even realized that he'd made his way home and was sitting on his back porch staring at nothingness until a solid ten minutes later of having done so.

He had sat there for quite a while longer, trying desperately to figure out what he was supposed to do. It was all crashing and burning around him so fast and he just didn't know which way was up anymore.

Unfortunately, Naruto had approached him with incredibly awful timing. That wasn't an excuse for his resulting behavior, just an unworthy explanation. The kid had actually **apologized** for what he had done. He hadn't done it because he felt bad about Sasuke, though. He had done it simply because he didn't want to let his father down. Why that outraged him so much and why that caused the last bit of everything in him lose to lose itself to uncontrollable, blind urges, he didn't know. He was just such a useless idiot for letting it happen and saying something so utterly ridiculous to the boy who had so tearfully admitted that his daddy had scared him with his behavior.

Overall, the boy had been right; he was worse than scum for what he had done. He'd fucked up so much with this kid, no matter his intentions. In fact, because of his attempts at trying to do everything right by Naruto, he had ended up not seeing what was right in front of him until it was too late. He had been the one to lecture Sasuke about such a concept earlier, but look at the hypocrite he had become in regards to that anyhow.

Feeling like absolute shit and knowing he had to go up and make things right, he walked up to the stairs leading to Naruto's room with pathetically slumped shoulders and a drag to his heavy footsteps.

Once he had finally made his way there, he knocked on the white wooden door, the sound somehow fittingly hollow and lifeless.

When he heard no reply for quite some time, he sighed and pushed open the door, knowing that Naruto must just be so upset that he didn't even want to so much as breathe in his direction.

He took a quick scan of the room, looking for any noticeable Naruto-shaped lumps or a spiky head of bright blonde hair. Frowning to himself when he spotted none on his first try, he looked over the room more carefully this time. When he still didn't notice his presence even the tiniest bit, that was when he started to feel a little worried.

Centering his chakra, he allowed it to feel out the other's presence, wondering just where the boy could be hiding. Was he really running away from his father because he had hurt him that badly?

Once he had thoroughly scanned his surroundings with his chakra as accurately as possible, he froze when the results finally sunk in.

Naruto was gone.

His eye widened and his pupil practically disappeared into the surrounding white when he came to that awful realization. Had something happened while he had been preoccupied with his never-ending self-pity? Had he really failed the child **again?**

Before he could completely lose himself to his wildly-beating heart and out-of-control paternal instincts, he bit into his thumb far viciously than necessary and went through a series of seals so fast that it was invisible to the naked eye.

With a resounding slam on the shaking wooden floorboards, blank ink spread out in a small circle and a puff of light grey smoke appeared, leaving a small brown pug in its vanishing wake.

"Hey, boss! What d'ya need?" asked Pakkun with an attentive wag of his short tail.

"Naruto. He's missing and I need you to find him; I need you to find him **now.**"

As Pakkun took in the slight tremble to his master's usually completely composed form, he asked in obvious worry, "You **lost him?** Kakashi, how-"

"There is no room for error this time, Pakkun; got it?" Kakashi interrupted with a dangerous glare.

Realising his master was hanging on by a mere thread, he nodded gruffly and had a quick but thorough sniff around, rummaging through the endless mess to make sure he got a good whiff of the boy's scent.

It was only a few seconds later that Kakashi noticed Pakkun look sharply up at the window, leaping up onto the sill and down on the ground below without so much as a word. Apparently, he really was taking this just as seriously as Kakashi was. He loved the boy a hell of a lot too and cared what happened to him just as much as he would for one of his own pups.

As Pakkun raced on below the now completely darkened sky, he made absolute sure not lose the boy's scent for even a split second. Thankfully, the boy hadn't had any sort of training in regards to covering his tracks and therefore it was child's play to follow his trail. Besides, he had a feeling that if stopped for even a second, Kakashi would surely step on his small tail in an instant. He was practically on top of him as it was, his need to find Naruto so intense that he probably didn't even realize it.

Very suddenly, Pakkun stopped in his tracks outside of a small apartment, one that was hauntingly familiar even to the dog.

As Kakashi screeched to a surprisingly inelegant stop, he asked his summon sharply, "This is where the scent stops?"

Looking at the house determinedly, the small dog replied, "Yes. This is where he is."

Kakashi almost couldn't hold himself upright when the relief crashed into him. It looked like Naruto had snuck out to see Tsunade for some comfort, nothing more. No kidnappings, no awful accidents; nothing that put his precious life in danger.

Pulling himself together as much as possible, he thanked Pakkun for his assistance and dismissed him with a small but grateful wave, the grunted 'your welcome' and look of confusion at his already retreating back for why Naruto had left to see Tsunade without permission his only response before he poofed out of existence.

The walk up to the apartment felt like it lasted for a small eternity, yet it could have barely been moments. Feeling so much and yet feeling nothing at all, he knocked on the door in rapid succession, his fist still going despite a voice inside exclaiming loudly, "Yeah yeah! Hold your bloody horses; I'm coming out!"

The door widened fractionally as Kakashi's hand was pulled from the surface, a pair of golden eyes watching him intensely for a few moments once they focused on his form. Then, abruptly, the door flew open and smacked harshly against the wall on the other side, surely leaving some sort of noticeable mark.

In the doorway stood one very pissed off Tsunade, hands balled into tight fists beside her hips and golden eyes blazing with a melting fury.

"You son of a bitch!" she said lowly but harshly, "You swore to me over and over again that you wouldn't hurt him, and yet just what the hell did you think you were doing before, huh?! I trusted you to-"

"Please," Kakashi said in an unusually passive voice, "let me see him. I just want to see that he's ok. You can kick me out or punch me in the face as soon as I'm done; just let me seen that he's alright. That's all I ask of you."

Looking at what must have been a subconsciously pleading expression on what was visible of his face, she sighed slightly in reluctant understanding, stepping aside to let him through with movements stiff with resounding anger.

"You better know what you doing here, kid. I am **not **gonna let you off like this next time so easily. You've been warned. The only reason I'm not throwing you out flat on your face is because I know how much you need him and because I care about what happens to the both of you; despite what a Goddamn fool you turn out to be most of the time."

If Kakashi had been feeling in better spirits, he would've smiled at her indirect, some-what forgiveness for his behavior towards the boy she considered her own grandson by now. Instead, he grabbed onto her reluctant invitation before she could change her mind and barged on through, his sense of smell finally kicking in enough for he himself to pin-point Naruto's scent.

In what must have been a mere split-second, he was in the doorway to Tsunade's living room, taking in the sight before him with a crowd of overwhelming emotions.

Naruto had been quickly been pulled out of his maelstrom of thoughts and conflicting emotions when he noticed a familiar presence in the doorway to the room he had occupied for the last half hour or so.

Instantly, he felt an uncontrollable wave of panic when he saw his daddy standing absolutely frozen in the doorway. He looked so blank as he looked on his equally frozen form with an unmoving gaze. He really hoped Daddy wasn't mad again! He didn't want him to-

All thoughts of such fears escaped his already overwhelmed mind when he felt himself lifted off of the couch and clutched tightly to a hard but warm chest in a flash of speed so fast, it must have been akin to lightning. He would have protested at such manhandling, if he hadn't recognized that oh-so-familiar hold as it enveloped him with the slightest of trembles.

**Daddy **was **hugging **him?!

Why the heck was Daddy hugging him? He was supposed to be mad, right? He was supposed to be yelling at him for breaking so many rules and being such a disappointment, not crushing him to the point where his breaths were a little shorter than usual. It looked like Daddy was still reacting really weirdly like before. What had happened to Daddy?

In a brave attempt to ask about his father's sanity, he allowed a single, timid word to pass through his lips, "Daddy?"

His father had no words in response. Instead, he only held him that much tighter, bringing his right arm up around the small of the boy's back to crush him that much closer.

Not such a good idea, perhaps.

As soon as his little stomach made rough contact with his father's hard jounin vest, he winced at the painful sensation…and that sure as hell didn't escape the notice of an already over-wired Kakashi.

Pulling back slightly and letting his hands brace the boy's small sides, he looked directly into the boy's wary gaze as he asked slowly, "Pup?"

Oh, crap; now Daddy was gonna get angry again. He always got so quiet whenever Naruto hurt himself. He had no idea why, but he always got very quiet whenever he was mad as well and didn't want anyone else to know, so Naruto had just assumed in his four-year-old mind that that meant Naruto getting hurt meant he was mad for some reason. He never bothered to ask questions about it, just nervously waited until Daddy wasn't mad anymore, patched him up if possible and came back to play with him again like nothing had happened.

With his gaze flickering from Kakashi's unreadable gaze to Tsunade's thickly-carpeted floors like he was watching a vertical tennis match, he said quietly, "It's ok, Daddy. I just got a bruise on my tummy from when Sasuke and I were fighting, that's all."

Great; like he hadn't been feeling like absolute shit before. Now, Kakashi had just realized that Naruto had been hurt and he'd been so preoccupied with his own selfish feelings to notice such a thing. How could he be such an arse to have not done the first thing you do when someone's been in a fight: check that they aren't hurt?

Closing his single eye to collect himself, he then opened it and looked at a corner of the coffee table conveniently situated directly to the right of Naruto's head as he said in a flat voice, "Let me see."

Feeling very nervous all of a sudden for no particular reason, Naruto returned quietly, "Daddy, you really don't need t-"

He was interrupted, though, by his father's very intense gaze switching back to look directly into his own clouded blue orbs. Naruto couldn't decipher what it was that look meant, but it, for some reason, made him comply with his previous demand without any further hesitation.

Slowly, he placed one of his small hands on the hem and lifted it up inch by inch, somehow very reluctant to show his injury. Once his wound had been fully revealed, they both instantly latched their gazes onto it, eager for different reasons to take in the extent of the damage.

While Naruto only stared at it in mild fascination, Kakashi reached forward before he could stop himself and allowed himself to hesitantly brush his fingers over the bruised surface. It was a pretty damn nasty one, too. The bruise was a ring of deep purple, surrounded by another thin, pale yellow ring. It landed right over his belly button and mapped out about a good ten or so centimetres from there on all sides. If Kakashi hadn't been so focused on the damage, he perhaps may have worried slightly about such a mark screwing up the now invisible seal on the boy's stomach. He may have also noticed how the pale yellow ring was slowly retreating, healing at an unusually rapid rate for any average human.

At first, both of them froze at the soft and careful touch, before Kakashi's typically icy fingers became a bit uncomfortable for Naruto and he scrunched his body away slightly from the cold sensation.

Kakashi, misinterpreting such an action as a sign of discomfort for having his father so close after…after what had happened between them…attempted to snatch his hand back as if he'd just touched an operating stove.

Before he could complete the action, though, a tiny hand reached forward and stilled it for a moment, before it bringing it back to its original position over the dark bruise.

Making sure that Daddy was looking into his eyes, albeit in obvious shock at such a bold action from the boy, he said in small but serious voice, "Don't be afraid, Daddy. We'll both make each other's hurts go away."

Kakashi's eye widened at such a mature yet innocent statement. He knew that Naruto didn't just mean injuries from a rough-and-tumble gone too far; he also meant the pain they both felt from what they had gone through. Despite being a mere four years old, Naruto was willing to do whatever it took to make his Daddy happy, even going so far as to promise to take all the hurt away despite that being a simply impossible feat.

But then he realized, perhaps that's where he had gone wrong. In a flash, he remembered that moment from the mission that he tried not to think about too much these days; the one where he had finally realized that he couldn't ignore what was between him and this child anymore. He had said that he believed the boy could be the one to save him from his pain, to help him truly **live **again. Had he really forgotten something so important so soon? Was he really trying to push away the boy who had given him a purpose in life again simply because he was afraid of the repercussions of the ever-looming truth of the boy's past?

Honestly, what a fool he had been…for about the thousandth time that day.

His hand shook slightly with underlying emotion as he brought that tiny head forward and rested it on the junction between his own neck and shoulder, having no response but simply wanting to just bring him as close as he could without further hurting his stomach. His fingertips on his other hand still remained lightly pressed to the boy's injury.

Realising that Daddy had understood what he was trying to say despite not having completely spelled it out for him, he buried his face into the crook of his father's neck that he had offered to the boy so willingly. Daddy had always been able to understand him without him having to exactly express what it was he was trying to convey.

The stayed like that for a moment in peaceful silence, neither one of them moving or making a sound. It was in that resulting silence, that Naruto noticed something rather odd: Daddy's pulse was going crazy. With his ear pressed so closely to such a pulse point, he could clearly hear it hammering away like a woodpecker at a piece of particularly tough bark.

Not realizing he was saying it out loud in mild wonder, he announced quietly to himself, "Wow, Daddy really must've been worried when he noticed I was gone."

At that particular declaration, Kakashi tensed harshly, snapping his fingers back from they boy's stomach and pulling back quickly to stare into his now stunned gaze with a glare. Did the boy really think Kakashi hadn't just about lost his mind with worry when he had just fucking **vanished**?

He was about to go into a loud rant displaying such outraged views, when he noticed that Naruto now looked afraid again. He obviously was worried that Daddy was gonna say something bad again and they were going to get into an awful fight once more.

Realising that allowing his own selfish emotions to control him was exactly what he had done last time and had resulted in hurting both himself and Naruto catastrophically, he allowed his stiff frame to relax slightly and his single eye to take on a much softer and gentler quality.

When he saw Naruto had noticed this and was now staring at him in confusion as a result at such a quick change in mood, he brought his forehead to the boy's slightly and closed his eye in a wave of overwhelming emotion when he announced quietly but with such force, "I don't think I've ever been so worried for such a long time. I was-" he gulped slightly before continuing, "I was so terrified something had happened to you. Please, Naruto, I beg you: don't do something like that again. If you want to see Tsunade, all you have to do is ask. I'll let you go, no matter how much we argue or how mad I am. I'd much prefer that than feeling like I could've lost you."

Naruto, hearing the obvious pain in his father's voice like he had never heard before, stared back at that still-closed eye in stunned silence. He finally realized just why Daddy wasn't mad and instead was, as he had said, 'so terrified'. He remembered for a small moment Granny Tsunade telling him that his Daddy had gone through so much more pain than either of them could ever understand and therefore Daddy was afraid than most others would be at losing the people precious to him. He also remembered, although he still hadn't quite being able to fully accept such a remark, that she had said that, in fact, Naruto was his most precious person and therefore the one that had saved him from eternal loneliness.

In a moment of pure instinct, he brought up one of his little hands and placed it atop his father's head of gravity-defying silver hair and tussled it in the exact way his father would do to him when he was feeling down. In some part of him, perhaps he felt that maybe, just maybe, that would bring him some sort of comfort like it had always brought Naruto when he had done it.

Kakashi snapped his eye open at the completely unexpected action, but Naruto was already speaking before he could think up a coherent response.

"Granny Tsunade told me that you've hurt a lot. She said that we'd never be able to understand exactly how much. I get it now why you were so upset before. I get that you were sad because I was sad and then you were even sadder because Sasuke could've hurt me and then you even **sadder **than that because I ran away when I could've gotten hurt again and you didn't know what had happened to me. Granny Tsunade made me realize that you didn't really mean the things you'd said, and so, Daddy, I'm just so-"

"No, Pup," Kakashi interrupted as he placed his hand atop the smaller one still sitting in his head of thick, silver hair, curling his fingers around the small appendage tightly as he continued, "you shouldn't have to say you're sorry anymore. **I **am the one that is truly in the wrong here. I said and did a lot of bad things despite the fact that I never meant any of it. You had every right to react the way you did and I was just too caught up in my emotions to realize that. I wasn't there for you the way you needed after I told you about your mother and I ended up hurting you far more than a father should ever do to his own son. So, I say it again: **I **am the one that is sorry here."

A small moment of heavy silence.

"Does that mean you're sorry enough to by me ramen again tonight?" Naruto asked with a sly smile and an obvious twinkle in his eye.

At first, Kakashi looked at him in confusion for such a rapid change in character, before realizing that Naruto no longer wanted the somber and heavy mood to continue and instead wanted to move on to happier times once more. They had both said what they needed to say and they both understood each other once more; that was all that mattered to the boy in the end. He was never one to linger in the darker times of life for no reason; that was just who he was, after all.

Giving his hand a playful squeeze, he said in genuine amusement, "Oh, I see how it is. This was all just a way to scam some more of that soupy crap off of me, wasn't it?"

"Hey!" a loud voice announced before Naruto could respond and as familiar figure stamped into the room with an accusing finger pointed at the young man, "Don't swear like that in front of him! He's only four years old! Control yourself, Hatake!"

Both members of the Hatake family froze for a moment at the unexpected intrusion, before their gazes locked with one another with a sly look becoming rapidly apparent in both of their eyes.

As they looked at the flustered woman, Kakashi asked in a neutral tone, "Say, how did you know that I'd sworn, Tsunade?"

"Yeah," Naruto tagged on with a small giggle, "that must've meant you were eavesdropping, eh Granny?"

Golden eyes changed from a look of outrage, to shock and then to embarrassment, before turning back to anger once more as she shouted, "That's not the point! Now come here so I can wipe those cocky smiles off your faces, you bastards!"

As she stalked on forward, Naruto asked his father quietly but still loud enough for the approaching woman to hear, "Hey, Daddy…isn't 'bastard' a pretty bad swear word too?"

Both Kakashi and Tsunade froze for a moment, before Kakashi looked down at the kid with a eye that somehow **smirked** when he returned, "Why yes, Naruto, I believe it is. What do you have to say to that one, 'Granny'?"

At that sly remark, Tsunade was instantly in action again, waving her hands in the air dramatically as she stormed forward with renewed determination and announced loudly, "Oh, I'll show you who's a 'Granny', you disrespectful fool!"

Before Tsunade could take a well-aimed lunge at the both of them, Kakashi quickly whipped Naruto up into this arms and carefully placed him atop his shoulders, grabbing on to his stubby little legs as he leapt out of the near-by window and raced with impressive speed on the street below as he did his best to escape the clutches of the mad woman still raving like a lunatic behind him.

If anyone had been watching the lot of them now, it'd be quite a sight to see. There Kakashi was, the usually stoic and completely disinterested ninja, running down the street like hell was on his arse as he laughed louder than anyone had who had ever known him thought he'd be capable of. Atop his shoulders sat a small boy with bright blonde hair and even brighter blue eyes, laugher even louder than his companion and waving his arms in the air with unrestrained joy. Behind them, a woman who was clearly on an angry rampage chased them with hollered promises of retribution, but even a stranger could see the uncontrollable smile tugging at her thin lips and the small glint of amusement in her glowing golden orbs.

When others looked on at the amusing but utterly heart-warming sight, they didn't see the pain present not so long ago, or the lies that would one day tear every one of their worlds apart. They saw the uncontrollable happiness and the way they couldn't help but bask in the glory of one another's presence, as if these tiny moments of joy were some of the most precious memories they would ever have.

Because, in the end, everyone's going to hurt you; you just have to decide who's worth the pain.

**A/N: First off, sorry for taking longer than usual! This one ended up taking twice as long, didn't it? I do actually have a valid reason, though. It was end of term this week and I had a lot of tests to study for as a result. Also, this chapter had a lot of things going on that were actually pretty damn hard to find the right words for. A lot of other chapters in the future are going to be just as hard to write, therefore I am changing the way I update. From now on, I will have no exact timeframe for when the next chapter will be up. I don't want to feel like I'm rushing important parts to keep up with my typical schedule. It's the school holidays at the moment, so I'll have more time to write anyhow. You'll probably more notice the longer time period of updating when school's back on. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I have to say, I really do mess with Kakashi a lot, don't I? I love the guy, but he's seriously just the perfect character to throw into these situations where he doesn't know how to deal with how he feels. I tried my best to show you why all of the characters were feeling the way they felt and why they reacted they way they did during each scene, but if you're still confused, feel free to ask! Please leave a review if you have a moment!**

**Ja ne!**

**Azzurro**


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